Theresa May’s retreat is a first step back on the road to sanity
Geraint Talfan Davies, chairman of Wales For Europe, reflects on Theresa May’s momentous deferral of the vote on her Brexit deal yesterday – and the revelation that the UK could unilaterally revoke Article 50...
Remember yesterday’s date: December 10, 2018. It is the date on which the United Kingdom Government blinked.
Two and a half years after a referendum and after a week of blind resolution, it realised that all it had mustered in that time was a plan that was headed for a humiliatingly large parliamentary defeat.
On the same day, the European Court of Justice helpfully declared that the path back from the brink is clear of legal obstacles.
Whether or not to revoke Article 50 is up to us – and only us.
Mrs May’s statement changed noone’s mind in the Commons.
Characteristically, she made clear she is not yet willing to admit her deal has reached the end of the road.
She will head to Brussels this week not to change the substance of the deal but to “seek reassurances”, notwithstanding that there are no reassurances that will change the arithmetic in Parliament.
When, eventually, it dawns on the Prime Minister that she has reached the end of the road, we may have an opportunity to begin the journey away from an act of self-harm unprecedented in our history and towards renewed solidarity with our continental neighbours, as well as towards security, sanity and as much certainty as one can hope for in this uncertain world.
And when that day comes – whether this week, next week or after Christmas – when MPs walk through the lobbies what should they have at the forefront of their minds?
It may seem quaintly old-fashioned to rely on the words of an 18th-century MP, Edmund Burke, to his Bristol constituents: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
It is the classic statement of representative democracy, spoken in 1774 before the extension of the franchise and before referendums were ever a realistic option.
But they are supremely apposite words today in a world that is infinitely more complex than the one Burke faced.
If Burke was struck by the complex judgments required of MPs in the 18th century, imagine how he would have reacted to the world of globalisation, jet travel, the internet, just-intime manufacturing and climate change.
Modern governments in the UK have resorted to referendums as political escape hatches, whether from devolution, Scottish independence or the opening of Welsh pubs on a Sunday.
They purport to give the decision to the public, although the High Court, has deemed that “a referendum on any topic can only be advisory for the lawmakers in Parliament”.
The tension between the law and politics has never been sharper than over Europe.
However different the world today, Burke’s dictum should still weigh heavily on our MPs, for in the run-up to the now-aborted vote many MPs will have been subjected to pressure to put their own judgement to one side, either out of deference to party loyalty or deference to the result of a two-and-a-half-year-old vote, taken on the basis of facts and circumstances that have radically changed.
There should be no reason today to feel bound by a referendum that was won on the basis of brazen lies, funding of questionable legality and a complete absence of workedthrough alternatives, all obscured by a misty but cunning nostalgia for a bygone age.
Neither is there good reason to accept a so-called deal that contains a 27-page list of unresolved issues.
All the indications are that Mrs. May’s illusory deal, whenever it reaches the Commons, will sink under a weighty parliamentary majority.
But even that still inevitable moment will be only a first step, and when it comes the path beyond may still not be clear.
Newspaper diagrams of the possibilities are labyrinthine, while even the best-informed commentators are left rolling dice.
It remains the case that there is currently no deal on the horizon or even just beyond the horizon that would command a majority in the House of Commons.
If Mrs May’s deal is a blind Brexit and the no-deal scenario is a kamikaze Brexit, then the Norway option – with however many plusses you may care to append to it – is the Northern Lights option.
It will vanish as quickly as it flared into view. And rightly so.
It has been espoused, among others, by Stephen Kinnock, MP for Aberavon, a talented man of impeccable pro-European credentials – son of a former European Commissioner, his mother a former member of the European Parliament and his wife a former Danish prime minister. Feel his pain.
He is certainly not “pining for the fjords”, pace John Cleese.
Deep down, proponents of the Norway option no more believe it is truly the right option for this country than I believe in the man in the moon.
They espouse it, perfectly honourably, because they believe, in Mr Kinnock’s words, that a second referendum “would drive yet another nail into our parliamentary democracy and would further deepen our country’s divides”.
There are other objections to a “Norway solution”, not least that it is unclear whether the members of EFTA – Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway – would let a country of our disproportionate size join.
But in one sense, the pros and cons of EFTA membership are neither here nor there.
What has to be resisted is the underlying contention that another referendum should not be contemplated – a contention with which Mrs May agrees.
Nervousness about a referendum is perfectly in order.
The shift in public opinion towards the Remain position has been significant but not yet decisive.
Various people have conjured images of insurrection if the 2016 decision were to be reversed.
Others are simply impatient for it all to end, ignoring the fact that leaving the European Union on March 29, 2019 would not be the end of anything, rather the beginning of decades of endless wrangling about our future, wrangling with Europe and with ourselves.
Mrs May and Mr Kinnock are right to be concerned about our parliamentary democracy.
But are we to avoid subjecting to democratic process a decision that that will define this country and our lives for half a century and more, on the grounds that the longest-lived democracy in the world fears a further contest of ideas?
That would be the biggest nail of all in our parliamentary democracy. One is inevitably drawn to the words of Franklin Roosevelt: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
■ Geraint Talfan Davies is chairman of Wales For Europe and the author of Unfinished Business: Journal of an Embattled European