MPs must work together to unblock Brexit, or they’ll open the way for authoritarians
AS we prepare for another week of parliamentary prevarication and unicorn spotting, there is at least one thing we can be reasonably sure of now: the UK will not leave the European Union on March 29, 2019. As Professor John Curtice says, there is simply not enough time to get the necessary legislation through Parliament, even if MPs took a collective happy pill and voted tomorrow for Theresa May’s bankrupt withdrawal agreement.
So, we at least have breathing space, a pause, a moment for reflection. My own wish would be for MPs to seize the moment and vote to revoke Article 50 altogether. MPs have the power to stop the clock for good, thanks to the good works of legally-minded MPs like the SNP’s Joanna Cherry.
Staying in the EU is the only sure way to stop the endless arguments about Canada plus, Norway plus, customs union, Irish backstop, regulatory alignment, maximum facilitation and all the rest of the gubbins that’s been occupying our addled brains for the last two-anda-half years. However, this isn’t going to happen.
And I’d have to agree that it would be undemocratic for MPs to simply reverse the result of the 2016 referendum by revoking A50. It may be that Parliament has the power and the constitutional right to do so: referendums are only advisory. But it would leave so much unpleasantness that British politics would be soured for decades. There would have to be a referendum.
This is where my unease turns to genuine anxiety. I have a horrible feeling that Labour’s Diane Abbott was right on Question Time this week when she said: “Be careful what you wish for.” She agrees with Nigel Farage that a repeat referendum is likely to endorse no-deal Brexit, perhaps by an even greater margin than in 2016.
Even if it left us with a mirrorimage result, with say 52% Remain against 48% Leave, that would itself be a disaster because it would have no legitimacy. Yes, some opinion polls say Remain would win a comfortable majority, but they said that last time.
The Brexiteers are already fieldtesting their slogans on social media. The frontrunner is “Tell Them Again”, which may not be as resonant as “Take Back Control” but is still pretty hot. It surfs on the very widespread disgust and alienation that many ordinary people feel about the political elite. It appeals to democratic injustice: how dare the globalists ignore the result of 2016, which David Cameron promised would be for keeps?
What would Remain’s slogan be? It’s likely to be a repeat of the Project Fear line which failed dismally in 2016. “Don’t put your children’s prosperity at risk”, perhaps, or “Think Twice; Think Jobs”. But what many pro-Europeans fail to grasp – and this applied to the Unionists in the Scottish independence referendum – is that it
ISN’T the economy, stupid. Brexit voters don’t just make their decisions on the basis of economic rationality, as seen from the CBI and corporate Britain.
People are always motivated more by emotion than numbers – on what they believe to be morally right. The sense that working-class people have lost control is a very potent mobiliser.
As in war – and it is remarkable how much Brexit mythology harks back to World War Two – people are quite willing to sacrifice some comfort for what they believe in.
I may think they are mistaken. As with the people who supported Donald Trump because he promised to Make America Great Again, and bring back the jobs, I think Brexit voters have been sold a false prospectus by politicians who do not have the best interests of working people at their hearts.
But that isn’t really the point. I can well understand the sense of injustice felt by people who have been left behind by global capitalism. They want to kick the system, and the referendum gave them a chance to do it. They need a very strong reason not to kick the metropolitans again. Only Labour can provide that reason, and Jeremy Corbyn has been singularly reluctant to do so.
His refusal even to meet Theresa May was irresponsible in this climate. It may have allowed him to avoid coming off the fence, but it looked petty and weak. Corbyn should have gone in guns blazing, demanded that she drop the red lines, and then mobilised Labour for either rejoining the single market or for a referendum.