If you want a second vote on the EU, you need to speak up
COLUMNIST
CAMPAIGNERS for a second EU referendum will only secure one if it becomes politically impossible not to hold another public vote.
They can make intellectual and even moral arguments why voters should have the final say on the exit deal, but unless they put the UK Government under the type of pressure which led David Cameron to call the 2016 referendum then it will remain nothing more than a desperate hope.
David Cameron was bound by an election promise to hold a referendum; a significant proportion of Conservative MPs and activists relished the prospect of campaigning for an Out vote; and his party faced what looked like a formidable electoral threat from Ukip.
There is no such pressure on Theresa May today to back a second referendum.
A committed band of EU-friendly MPs are still in a battle for Parliament, never mind the citizens of the UK, to get what they consider a truly “meaningful” vote on the Brexit deal; they would count it a major success to nail down this commitment.
The Liberal Democrats went into the June election with a pledge to hold a referendum on the deal but the party won just 12 of the UK’s 650 constituencies. This suggested that while thousands of people are willing to take part in pro-EU marches, there are not millions of citizens for whom this is a top vote-winning issue.
Furthermore, even people who wish that the UK had voted to stay in the EU last year will have doubts about the wisdom of going for another referendum. Out campaigners would portray it as the political class trying to defy the will of the people and this could lead to an even bigger vote to leave and an entrenchment of divisions in our democracy.
Supporters of a soft Brexit may calculate the real danger is that anti-EU MPs pressure Theresa May to walk away from the talks without a deal.
MPs who want to keep as many advantages of the single market as possible will seek to strengthen the PM’s position as she begins the second phase of Brexit negotiations.
Nevertheless, there are committed advocates of a second referendum.
Swansea West Labour Geraint Davies has published a Bill which would commit the Government to holding a vote at least three months before the UK is due to leave the EU in March 2019. If voters rejected the exit deal then the “default option” would be Britain staying in the EU.
There are suggestions the idea of a second referendum is gaining some traction with the public.
Forty-one per cent of respondents recently told pollster Survation they felt “fearful” about Brexit and 50% backed a second referendum, with only 34% opposed.
It’s possible that Conservative strategists will at some stage in the unfolding drama spy a tactical advantage in a second referendum.
Camilla Cavendish, the former head of the Downing Street policy unit, made the case in the FT that a public vote would be in the party’s interests.
She warned that “Tories dutifully bent on delivering what they think is the ‘will of the people’ are deluded if they expect to reap any thanks on the other side,” adding: “If the Tories want to avoid annihilation then, they should try to get the best possible deal and then put it to a public vote...
“It would be the grown-up thing to do. It might even start to heal some divisions.”
However, if the choice is between leaving the EU on terms agreed in the Brexit talks and remaining in the union, this would put many Tory MPs in a politically hideous position.
Would Theresa May – who backed Remain in 2016 – now campaign for voters to back the Brexit deal she had negotiated, even if the same array of economists warned Britain would be worse off outside the EU?
Tories who did come out for Remain would alienate themselves from both hard Brexiteers and from many of those who battled for a decent exit deal, potentially plunging the Conservatives into an even deeper display of disunity. It’s an ugly scenario the Tories will want to resist.
For a second referendum to be on the cards political climate change needs to take place.
Short of a spectacular resurgence in Lib Dem support, this will require Labour to get off the fence.
Jeremy Corbyn told a recent European Socialist Conference that Labour has “not made any decision on a second referendum”, despite saying in October there “isn’t going to be another referendum”.
Labour, understandably, is reluctant to antagonise voters in traditional heartland seats who backed Brexit and were targeted by Ukip. But Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer is careful to keep his options open.
When pressed by Andrew Marr at the weekend, he said: “Things are moving so fast that it’s hard to know what’s going to come next. But we are not calling for it.”
If Mr Corbyn tub-thumped with the energy that he brought to the June election campaign for a public vote there would be an exponential increase in pressure on the Government to take such an option seriously.
The Labour leader has never been seen as a europhile – his push for an Remain vote in 2016 often looked half-hearted – but he could campaign with gusto for a referendum to take place as a champion of democracy.
The other game-changer would be if the EU came forward with an offer to keep us in the union so dramatic it necessitated another referendum. They have every incentive to.
Brexit may have damaged the European project but the victory of a far right party in France or Germany could bring the curtain down on this epic experiment.
If ever there was a moment when there is a case for considering reform of freedom of movement so populist blowhards do not exploit antagonism towards migrants this looks like it.
But with Angela Merkel still in search of a coalition and the official EU negotiators now steeling themselves for Brexit trade talks, such a grand external intervention appears off the agenda.
If people in the UK really want a second referendum they will have to find a way of making their voices heard in Westminster at a volume that cannot be ignored, and they need to do so fast.