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[...]The true lesson of the past tumultuous week in British politics is that no Conservative government is capable of adopting, much less implementing, a coherent alternative position to that of the United Kingdom’s leaving the EU by automatic operation of Article 50 on 29 March 2019. If in three months there is still a Conservative government, then “crashing out” of the EU without a negotiated withdrawal will have become inevitable. That important minority in the Conservative Parliamentary party favourable to this outcome need only persevere in their current obstructionist tactics to gain their goal through the asymmetric workings of Article 50. Under Article 50 “no deal” emphatically means “no deal.” [...]
The EU-27 have plausibly insisted that no substantial renegotiation of the Withdrawal Agreement is possible. It is not open to the House of Commons to reopen the negotiations so painfully conducted by the British government over the past eighteen months. The EU, moreover, can only negotiate with the UK’s government, not with any other grouping or current of opinion. If the House of Commons wishes to discuss meaningfully with the EU the course of Brexit over the coming months, it can only do so through the medium of a British government pursuing policies which the Commons endorses. The embarrassing European Council last week was a reminder to the Prime Minister that her colleagues recognise and are increasingly irritated by the fact that she is their only possible British interlocutor, but she is an interlocutor whose words have only limited validity and authority.
EURef2?
More and more MPs see a way out of the current impasse that may be acceptable to the EU and themselves in the shape of a further referendum, particularly one offering a choice between the Prime Minister’s proposed Withdrawal Agreement and remaining in the EU. The democratic rationale for such a further consultation would be that the arrangement negotiated by Mrs. May and her ministers deviated and had to deviate so far from what was offered by the Leave side in the 2016 referendum that the British electorate should be given a chance to reconsider its initial decision. If the electorate wished to stick to that decision, the text negotiated by the Prime Minister leaves open a wide range of future relationships between the UK and the EU, which a future British government would negotiate after 2019. If, however, on further reflection the British electorate wished to remain in the EU, it will be able to do so, as the European Court of Justice has recently established, on the basis of its established opt-outs and budgetary rebate. [...]
A fresh General Election?
The Labour Party leadership now argues for the former option. Critics within and outside Labour have claimed that this is a disingenuous tactic, designed to facilitate Brexit in a way that will be as harmful as possible to the Conservative Party. Whether this criticism is justified or not, it seems in the highest degree unlikely that the Conservative Party or the DUP will be prepared to vote in such a way as to provoke a rapid General Election. Conservative backbenchers are united on only one topic, which is that of the undesirability of installing Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street. The DUP have strongly suggested that the only circumstance in which they would support a motion of “no confidence” in the government was if ministers seemed likely finally to endorse the Irish backstop, now an unlikely occurrence. Nor is it clear what a General Election would resolve on the European issue. Given its present leadership the Labour Party will be unable to offer a coherent alternative either to the government’s proposals or to “no deal.” The claim that a new Labour government would be able to negotiate rapidly a new and radically more favourable arrangement with the EU while remaining outside the Customs Union and the Single Market is highly implausible. In the event of Mr. Corbyn’s becoming Prime Minister in late March 2019 with such an unrealistic expectation in his mind, the chances of the UK’s leaving the EU with “no deal” would be scarcely less menacing than under a Conservative government. If there is to be a new government to implement a People’s Vote the overwhelming probability is that it will have to come from within the (cross-party) ranks of the current Parliament.
The logical conclusion of the above analysis is that a People’s Vote may well emerge over the coming month as the only realistic alternative to a “no deal” Brexit. A People’s Vote will, however, only be successfully called by a national government, formed of a limited number of Conservative MPs, Labour MPs for the most part and some representatives of smaller parties. This national government would not need to last for much longer than six months, and not necessarily be confined to “remainers.” Once greater clarity had been established on the future course of Brexit, a government based on a new majority in the House of Commons could then be instituted or another General Election held. It would be up to this new government to take the next steps in European policy, whether reintegrating the UK into the EU or negotiating a future relationship between the UK and the EU after Brexit. [...]