No-deal does not preclude small agreements to ease us into v

The scale of the Government’s defeat in the meaningful vote on Tuesday must surely spell the end of the Prime Minister’s withdrawal deal. It is impossible not to feel sympathy for Mrs May, who has put so much effort into putting her deal together, but we must now steer a different course.

One of the many problems which have made the last two years so difficult is that the House of Commons has a majority of members who voted Remain in the referendum. Many, to their credit, have accepted that their duty is to implement the referendum result since Parliament had delegated the decision on our membership of the European Union to the people. Others, less honourably, have twisted and turned in their determination to thwart the will of the people.

So we hear calls for a second referendum on the basis that this time we will have an “informed debate”.

Perhaps my memory is at fault but I don’t recall any Remain supporters saying during the 2016 referendum debates that since that debate was so “uninformed” we would have to hold another one. No. The only reason these people are calling for a second referendum is that they lost the first one. And our nation, traditionally, does not take kindly to bad losers.

Others call for a delay in the departure date. But we are already approaching the third anniversary of the referendum and those who voted for us to leave are increasingly frustrated by the delay. And surely there is no prospect of negotiating a new comprehensive agreement in a matter of a few more weeks. Some are even engaged in an attempt to wrest control of the process from the Government, something which would be a fundamental breach of our centuries-old constitutional conventions and quite outrageous. There is an alternative.

The EU is preparing for us to leave without a comprehensive agreement, as Jean-claude Juncker confirmed on Tuesday evening. So are we. But there are no signs that these preparations are being coordinated. They should be.

And since it is clearly in everyone’s interests that friction should be avoided and, if possible, eliminated, these should include a series of ad hoc arrangements with the same objective in mind.

After all, the European Union has demonstrated time after time that it is eminently capable of doing things at the very last moment. So an exit on March 29 without an overall formal agreement need not be a “no-deal” exit. It could be accompanied by a series of smaller deals, which would be in the interests of the EU and the UK.

I would also urge the Government, as part of this approach, to say that, for a 12-month period, the UK would not impose any tariffs, tariff barriers or any other kind of obstacle on imports from the European Union.

We would, of course, hope that the EU would reciprocate. I think there is a good chance it would, particularly if our offer were to be accompanied by an offer of a financial contribution. But we should be prepared to put in place these measures, unilaterally if needed. And we should use that 12-month period to negotiate a free-trade agreement with the EU along the lines proposed by Donald Tusk last year.

I have always believed that the dangers of a so-called “cliff edge” exit are greatly exaggerated. It is Project Fear Mark 2. And just as the predictions of Project Fear Mark 1 were proved to be completely wide of the mark, so would the predictions of Project Fear Mark 2, particularly if a “no-deal” exit were accompanied by the measures I have set out.

Even without them, we know from the Mayor of Calais that there won’t be disruption at the French border. The proposals I am making would ensure there wouldn’t be disruption at the UK border either.

Just under three years ago, the people voted decisively to leave the European Union. They saw that this departure could make a tremendous positive change in our nation’s fortunes.

We would be free of our

‘The European Union has showed time after time that it is eminently capable of doing things at the very last moment’

entanglement with the flawed and failing structure of the EU, beset as it is with a multitude of problems and obstinate in its refusal to reform, as David Cameron found to his cost.

They saw the huge opportunities which would open up in terms of trading with the rest of the world. Any outcome which failed to make good on those expectations would be a betrayal of that vote, the biggest in our democratic history. It would have very far reaching consequences on the stability of our country.

But that need not happen. There is another way. It is open to us. We should take it.

Lord Howard of Lympne was Conservative Party leader 2003-2005