Brexit is going to happen: it’s time some MPs realised that
If Remainers actually want a soft exit then instead of demanding the impossible, they should be negotiating with Brussels
What do they hope to achieve, the Remain refuseniks currently filling our airwaves with their threats and lamentations? What is the game plan of Chuka Umunna, Tim Farron, Anna Soubry and the others demanding that we keep every aspect of EU membership?
Are they trying to sabotage the referendum result? Are they genuinely interested in securing the best exit terms? Are they luxuriating in the media attention? Or are they just letting off steam, with no very clear objective? Let’s consider the possibilities in turn.
At least some former Remain leaders plainly want to overturn the referendum. Though they murmur clichés about respecting the will of the people, the Lib Dems, SNP and Greens, as well as a chunk of Labour MPs, are now demanding a rerun. Tony Blair, who no longer needs to worry about voters, has now said publicly what many elected representatives say privately: that the notification of withdrawal should be rescinded.
In fact, there is no prospect of Article 50 being reversed. A legal process is now under way: Britain will leave the EU on March 29 2019, with or without a deal. As Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s chief negotiator, reminded us, “the clock is ticking”.
Think what Remainers would need to do to stop that clock. First, they’d need to get two thirds of MPs to vote for an early dissolution – something neither the Tories nor the DUP want. Then they’d need to win the subsequent general election on a pro-EU platform.
Remember that, at the recent election, the anti-Brexit parties all lost ground, while those promising to implement the referendum won 85 per cent of the vote. If they achieved these two miracles, they’d then need to win the ensuing referendum. Public opinion hasn’t shifted since last year – if anything, Leave has slightly extended its lead.
Finally, they’d need to persuade the other 27 states to take Britain back. And they’d need to do all this within 20 months.
A moment’s thought tells us that these things won’t happen. The question is not whether Brexit takes place, nor when, but how to make it advantageous to all sides. Most Remainers, being democrats, accept the result, and want to get the most beneficial terms. But that isn’t the game of the parliamentary agitators.
Consider the issues on which they have chosen to fight. Staying in the customs union would be the worst of all worlds: it would mean that Brussels continued to dictate our trade policy without our having any input into that policy. No other country – not Iceland, not Switzerland, not Macedonia – has accepted such an idiotic deal. The only non-EU territories inside the customs union are microstates with no independent foreign policy, such as Monaco – though Turkey has a partial membership. Yet MPs who had never heard of the customs union before last year are now grabbing at it as a way to wipe the grins off the faces of the supposedly triumphalist Leavers.
It’s a similar story with Euratom, the body that regulates nuclear policy within the EU. There may be a case for Britain to continue to work with Euratom in the way that, say, Switzerland does. But there is no way to remain a full member. Euratom is not a Euro-agency like the European Food Safety Authority or the European Centre for Disease Control – bodies that are open to participation by non-EU states. It is an intrinsic part of the EU, governed by the European Commission and Court and funded from the general budget.
Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s negotiator, spelled it out bluntly: “You cannot be part of Euratom and not part of the European Union.” Tellingly, though, the Umunnas and Cleggs didn’t breathe a word of criticism. They never do when hard Brexit demands come from the Brussels side.
If they truly wanted a soft Brexit, there are plenty of issues where British Europhiles reasonably might seek compromise. They might campaign for us to replicate chunks of the single market, à la Suisse. They might argue for a phased implementation. They might push for us to stay involved with common EU policies on police co-operation, scientific research, educational exchange and the like. They might seek a formalised status that retains some institutional link – an associate membership that left us in a common market, not a common government.
If they were genuinely after such an outcome, then they would be pressing Brussels, rather than just the UK, to show more flexibility.
Instead, they loudly demand things that they know to be impossible. Their purpose is not to convince the government, but to criticise it. When Theresa May held out a hand to Labour MPs, inviting their input, it was peevishly batted aside. “Theresa May has finally accepted the government has completely run out of ideas,” said Labour’s Andrew Gwynne. What, then, are they after, these petulant MPs? Don’t underestimate the appeal of being constantly on the Today programme. Editors don’t want nuanced criticism: they want rows that can be condensed into five-minute segments. Some politicians will always oblige.
We’re dealing with something that is as much psychological as political. Continuity Remainers are still tetchy about the referendum, and they want us to know it. To the extent that they rationalise their behaviour, they seem to think that, if they make themselves disagreeable enough, Brexit will somehow go away.
It won’t. The majority of the 48 per cent, from Theresa May downwards, now want Brexit to succeed. Publicly undermining our negotiators can have only one effect, namely to encourage Brussels to offer harsher terms.
Is that what Remain refuseniks secretly want? A deal so bad that, in some corner of their minds, they think it’ll bring us crawling back to Brussels?
I wish I could find a more charitable explanation, but I honestly can’t.
Publicly undermining our negotiators will only encourage Brussels to offer harsher terms
FOLLOW Daniel Hannan on Twitter @ DanielJHannan;
at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion