Right answers hard to find
All the many possible Brexit answers are wrong, because the 2016 referendum asked the wrong question, argues David Hall, of Auckland University of Technology.
The right answer to the wrong question is still the wrong answer. And for British Prime Minister Theresa May, the best Brexit deal she could negotiate is still the wrong Brexit, precisely because of the question the 2016 referendum on European Union membership asked.
May’s Brexit deal – the socalled Chequers deal – is dead, as it stands. It was widely expected to lose yesterday’s vote, but the margin was devastating. At 432 votes to 202, this was by far the largest Government defeat in the Commons over the past century.
May might seem vanquished, but this isn’t straightforwardly so. The Conservative Party is hopelessly split on Brexit, but united in keeping Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn out of office. Members are unlikely to support today’s no-confidence motion, which would otherwise trigger a general election.
So May will press on. Due to an amendment passed controversially last week, she must present a new plan to Parliament by Monday. This is a deliberately hard ask. The Chequers deal took almost two years to negotiate and reject. May has urged MPs to debate alternatives over coming days.
There is a chance that the EU will renegotiate. EU leaders have insisted they won’t revisit the withdrawal agreement, but this is politics after all. If there is an interest, there is a way.
Yet it is doubtful that EU concessions would appease the MPs rejecting May’s deal.
This is partly because the EU must play hardball. The woes of any single country are outweighed by the EU’s interests in preserving its union. Its severe treatment of Greece during the eurozone crisis is an illuminating precedent.
But it is also because opponents to May’s deal pull in two different directions. The Brexiteers on her Government’s backbenches want a harder Brexit, or to leave the EU with no deal at all. Meanwhile, Opposition MPs mostly prefer a softer Brexit, or no Brexit at all. What could the EU offer to satisfy these divergent constituencies?
What we’re seeing now is the unravelling of the Brexit question. Beneath the disarming simplicity of the 2016 referendum question – ‘‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?’’ – there lurked a bewildering tangle of problems with serious implications for Britain’s constitution, economy, international relations and national identity.
This is why the Independent Commission on Referendums, in a July 2018 report, recommended: ‘‘Wherever possible, a referendum should come at the end, not the beginning, of the decision-making process.’’ Legislators should settle the trade-offs and complexities before seeking a public mandate, not undergoing the process of discovery in the race to the end.
So, if the 2016 referendum asked the wrong question, could it be asked again, better? A second referendum – which once seemed wishful thinking – is now an increasingly likely option. Not because there’s an invincible moral argument for the so-called ‘‘People’s Vote’’. Nor because the integrity of British democracy demands it. But because Parliament is stuck. A referendum might be necessary, simply to set Parliament a task that it is capable of delivering.
But a second referendum would almost certainly recreate the sins of the first. The side that wins will be doubly emboldened, the side that loses will be doubly disaffected. British society will suffer, once again, from being forced to pick sides.
Brexit has created a new axis of political disagreement, between Leavers and Remainers, which cuts across the old parliamentary divisions of Left and Right, Tory and Whig. This fragmented landscape is already spawning unlikely coalitions of MPs from opposing parties, which are likely to exert their power over coming days. The rigidity of the UK’s first-past-thepost system, which New Zealand abandoned by embracing MMP, exacerbates this volatility.
MPs have exerted their parliamentary influence, so May is deferring to them to hatch a plan. To reach a majority decision would be an extraordinary act of compromise.
Meanwhile, a ‘‘no deal’’ Brexit on March 29 is the default, where the UK leaves the EU with no prior agreements on trade, customs, rights of residents, and more. This is the only option that doesn’t require a political breakthrough, with either MPs or the EU.
Whoever said leaving isn’t easy? It’s finding agreement, in spite of our differences, that is hard.
A chaotic no-deal Brexit has moved closer after the defeat of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal in parliament, the European Union’s most senior officials have warned.
Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, has appealed to the House of Commons to come up with some answers, and strongly hinted at the need for a second referendum or parliamentary vote to cancel the decision to leave the EU.
‘‘If a deal is impossible and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?" he said after the deal was defeated yesterday by 432 votes against and 202 in support – the biggest defeat for a government in the House of Commons in modern history.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, warned that chaos was looming as the deadline for Britain to crash out of the EU without a deal approaches in the next two months.
‘‘The risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the UK has increased with this evening’s vote. I urge the United Kingdom to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Time is almost up.’’
Tusk’s spokesman said the EU would step up no-deal planning and expected May’s government to present a Plan B in the coming days.
‘‘We regret the outcome of the vote, and urge the UK government to clarify its intentions with respect to its next steps as soon as possible.
‘‘We will continue our preparations for all outcomes, including a no-deal scenario. The risk of a disorderly exit has increased with this vote, and while we do not want this to happen, we will be prepared for it.’
May is expected to travel to Brussels soon to begin new negotiations to save the deal.
EU negotiators are already working on the assumption that Britain is ‘‘in Article 50 extension territory’’, and are expecting May to ask for a delay of up to three months until Brexit day, presently scheduled for March 29.
Juncker travelled back early to Brussels yesterday from a European parliament sitting in Strasbourg to be ready for ‘‘emergency’’ Brexit talks. Michel Barnier, the EU’s lead negotiator, will hold discussions with senior MEPs to consider the way forward as the European parliament begins its plans to ratify the withdrawal deal.
Before yesterday’s vote, Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister, hinted at reopening the Brexit deal as long as Britain did not seek fundamental changes to the draft treaty.
France, meanwhile, is resisting changes. Nathalie Loiseau, the French Europe minister, said Britain needed a Plan B. ‘‘It’s not up to us, we have given everything we can give.’’
Senior EU officials and diplomats have suggested that new legally binding assurances could be given on the temporary nature of the Irish backstop, should a consensus emerge among MPs and the government over the United Kingdom’s future relationship with Europe.
New wording could be added to the withdrawal agreement to reassure MPs about the backstop of a partial UK-wide customs union. It could say that the plan, designed to prevent a hard border in Ireland should future trade talks break down, would be in place for only a ‘‘short period’’.