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Brexit opponent Steve Bray demonstrates opposite the Houses of Parliament in London on January 21. Photo: AP
Opinion
Opinion
by Alan Rosling
Opinion
by Alan Rosling

Theresa May and the EU can’t resolve Brexit without more time, and then a second referendum

  • Alan Rosling says it’s not clear how any Brexit deal could clear Parliament – and the European Union – before the present deadline, and political divisions are too deep to resolve without another vote
This week, UK Prime Minister Theresa May returned to the House of Commons with her Plan B for Brexit. Last week, on January 15, she suffered an unprecedented and massive defeat in Parliament on the proposed deal with the European Union. The fact that her revised plan was little changed from her original deal shows the profound crisis of leadership and political imagination in the UK. There seems no realistic prospect of negotiating sufficient changes to the deal to achieve agreement in time for the UK to leave the EU on schedule on March 29. 

The UK has been pitched into the worst political and constitutional crisis in living memory. Former prime minister David Cameron’s decision to call a referendum over the UK’s membership in the EU was designed to contain deep splits in the Conservative Party over Europe. Instead, the unexpected victory of the Leave campaign triggered the slide towards the current toxic impasse.

May’s handling of the negotiations with Europe and her decision to call an election in 2017, resulting in the loss of her majority in the House of Commons, have pushed the country towards a train-wreck Brexit. The opposition Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, contributed to the loss of the referendum. Corbyn has subsequently provided no constructive alternative proposals to those cobbled together by the prime minister. There appears to be no majority for any feasible outcome in a deeply divided Commons; party discipline has melted away and leadership is absent.

The default position is that the UK will exit the EU, with or without agreed terms, on March 29, in just over two months’ time. While there are a few convinced Brexiteers who believe leaving the EU without a deal is an acceptable risk, the vast majority of politicians, economists and business leaders think that a so-called hard Brexit would inflict serious damage to the country. The worst-case scenarios suggest there would be significant disruption to trade, travel and supplies of essential items. The Bank of England has modelled downside scenarios that envisage GDP shrinking by as much as 8 per cent with nasty knock-on effects on employment, inflation, asset prices and the pound.

The only thing on which most MPs can agree is that crashing out of the EU without a deal is unacceptable. Yet, in the absence of another solution agreed upon not just by the UK Parliament but also the 27 remaining members of EU, the UK seems set to fall out of the EU in just a few weeks.

May still appears to believe she can bounce the EU into relaxing the terms on the Irish backstop in her agreed deal. This, she hopes, would engender enough support from her own revolting backbenchers, the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland (on whom her minority government depends) and some moderate Labour MPs to pass the revised exit deal. However, the EU has given her very little comfort that they would concede legally binding changes to the backstop.

Currently, in the absence of a new trade agreement after the transition period, Northern Ireland – indeed all of the UK – could find itself locked into the rules of the European single market indefinitely to avoid a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.

There are myriad other ideas being advocated for the UK’s future relationship with the EU, from Labour’s ill-defined customs union to joining the European Free Trade Association on “Norway-plus” terms. However, there is too little time realistically to negotiate any of these ideas and none offer a reasonable prospect of being agreed upon by both the House of Commons and the EU. As with May’s ill-fated deal, other solutions founder on the contradiction between the UK’s desire to be free to negotiate its own global trade arrangements while preserving frictionless borders with Europe and the EU’s insistence on preserving the integrity of the single market.

Traffic passes an anti-Brexit poster at the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The question of an Irish backstop – designed to prevent the return of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland after the UK leaves the EU – continues to bedevil Brexit negotiations. Photo: AFP

In all this confusion, two things are increasingly clear. First, more time is required to resolve these issues beyond the two years set out in Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. The UK must either agree with the EU on a relaxation of the date of exit or, failing that, it must unilaterally revoke the notice under Article 50 to stop the clock.

Second, the divisions in Parliament and the country over Europe are too deep and raw for the normal political process to resolve. Political leadership is critically required to converge parliamentary opinion around terms of exit which can be agreed with the EU. After years of such acrimonious and inconclusive debate over Europe, and the deeply unsatisfactory referendum process that resolved nothing, any way forward must surely be put back to the people in a second confirmatory referendum. Now that it is appreciated what leaving Europe really means, they should be offered the choice of the best-negotiated exit or to continue in the EU and try to reform that troubled institution from within.

Alan Rosling is an entrepreneur, adviser and commentator based in Hong Kong. He was a member of the No 10 Policy Unit from 1991-93

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Second referendum is best way forward for Britain
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