Escaping the Brexit dilemma

There is a Brexit dilemma: a growing consensus that Brexit was a bad mistake together with the fatalistic acceptance that nothing much can be done about it.

For committed Remainers, there is the smug satisfaction of having been right all along. The predicted economic costs have duly materialised. The less predicted global upheaval has left Britain dangerously stranded in a geo-economic no-mans-land. Public opinion polls are increasingly negative about Brexit.

If the mistake is so obvious, surely then Britain can and will re-join, with some urgency? But there is a big difference between the virtual reality of opinion polls and the harder political reality of undoing Brexit.

This government has adopted a different tack: seemingly more practical but less ambitious. Anxious to close divisions amongst its (former) supporters, it has accepted Brexit as a fait accompli and is attempting to re-negotiate softer terms. But it cannot toddle faster than baby steps or further than its ‘red lines’ permit, and these preclude membership of the customs union or Single Market.

Gradualism doesn’t appear to be getting very far, though there is undoubtedly useful work being done repairing some of the damage caused by the breezy carelessness of the Brexit negotiators. Each modest step – be it a young person’s mobility scheme; or participating in a single market for defence equipment- is proving to be very difficult. The EU believes that the UK isn’t serious about reengagement. It then demands a high price for any concession which the British refuse to pay or, as with Erasmus, agree to pay (a lot). Even small improvements then attract howls of ‘Brexit betrayal’.

I suggest that we go to the nub of the problem: that the mistake was collectively made by the British public. Politicians are not allowed to say that the public made a mistake just as shopkeepers are obliged to say that ‘the customer is always right’. But politicians are having to sort out the mess. Left to themselves, politicians would correct their own mistakes by performing a U-turn and accepting the ensuing embarrassment, usually short-lived. But only the public can undo the Brexit mistake; the question is how and when.

I am not a fan of referenda. Complex problems are rarely captured in a simple question. We have also learnt that referenda can be rancorous and divisive. But, like it or not, we have established that model for big constitutional issues. The Brexit boil cannot be lanced without a new referendum.

The question then is whether to stage a referendum now to energise the process of re-engagement or to wait until negotiations have produced a tangible outcome. The problem with the latter is that any British government will continue be hamstrung without a popular mandate whilst the EU has no incentive to engage seriously without hard evidence of a change in the national mood. That evidence can only come from a definitive test of public opinion.