How to reverse Brexit, a guide for angry Remainers
After the wild events of recent years – the 2015 general election result, the rise of Corbyn, Brexit, Trump – only a fool would term a potential political outcome completely impossible. But the chances of Brexit being halted before it happens in March 2019, or before the end of the transition period in January 2020, look remote.
The Lords will kick up, but an unelected chamber stuffed full of appointments risks its future by trying to block Britain’s exit from the EU. The House of Commons is where it’s at, ultimately. There are some Tory MPs who may rebel against the government position, but so far they say they are not trying to reverse the referendum. They want to amend or soften Brexit. Push that too far and it could bring the government down and possibly let in Jeremy Corbyn. What are the Tory Remainer rebels’ limits? Are they going to quit the Tory party this year or next? They are not a united bunch. A few do look ready to bring the house down, but others among them aspire to be cabinet ministers under another Tory leader post-May and post-Brexit.
Efforts may be made to amend Brexit so that there is a referendum on the terms. That’s a recipe for even more chaos. Advocates of the second referendum position cannot even explain what the question would be. In on the old terms? Are they available? If so, even Cameron’s renegotiated terms were rejected by the voters in June 2016? Or would a “yes” to staying in actually only result in an instant hard Brexit in March 2019? All this when voters are clear the thing was decided and is happening. Just. Get. On. With. It.
Complicating the calculations for Tory Remainers, there exists a small group of Labour MPs dedicated to Brexit. The Tory rebels could go for it in a Commons vote on the Brexit deal – ending their association with the Tory party – and still fail. Even the most outspoken – Anna Soubry – softened her line late week on the BBC’s This Week, in one of her rare media outings, saying interestingly that she could vote for a deal with no Customs Union if other requirements were satisfied.
Brexit is happening. That is the central fact. I’m pleased about this but know that lots of people, some of them close friends, are upset. As the realisation dawns that the battle on stopping Brexit is lost, as it seems likely to be, it looks as though ultra-Remain energy will be channeled into trying to get Britain to rejoin the EU in the 2020s.
How might that be done? I’ll explain what is required for that to happen. Leavers should understand – and accept, this being a democracy – that it is possible. But ultra-Remainers need to take a deep breath too and realise that once Brexit has happened it is extremely difficult to win the case and make re-entry happen.
Consider the steps involved:
1) Ultra-Remainers need to either take over a party and convert it to rejoining the EU or invent a new party, which is not easy in the British parliamentary system. Or perhaps create a Rejoin insurgent grassroots movement – the Europhile equivalent of the old UKIP – that over the years pressurises Labour into becoming Rejoin.
2) If it is Labour that is the vehicle for rejoining then it needs to agree this and put a commitment to re-entry referendum in the party’s manifesto. If it attempts to avoid this, and says that it will just legislate to rejoin if elected, for re-entry without a referendum, it will be harried like hell by the media and by considerable numbers of voters. Much in the way that David Cameron was forced to concede a referendum to get through the 2015 general election intact, the Rejoin party would need to commit in an election to letting the voters decide in a fresh referendum.
3) The party – Labour or new party – committed to a referendum on rejoining would then have to win a general election. By definition, advocating a major constitutional change that would be controversial and contested, the subject could dominate and derail a campaign when bored voters who accept that the UK left the EU a few years before want to hear about other subjects.
4) Let’s say the Rejoin party gets round that. It wins a healthy overall majority in the Commons. It legislates for a referendum to rejoin the EU, and a date is set for the vote. But on what terms would Britain go back into the EU? As a new member, committed to joining the euro, or not? It seems unlikely that the UK would be able to revert to its pre-2016 arrangements, with opt-outs and the rebate. Voters would know this, and even if the EU makes an offer (why should it annoy its members by doing that?) then it is open to question whether or not it would be believed. The EU will also have moved on itself and continued to integrate.
5) All of this effort to rejoin would be happening against a backdrop of potential protests and guaranteed boredom. There are the voters to consider. There was a vote, in 2016. By 2020 the thing will have happened. The world moves on. Perhaps after Brexit the world or the economy will end, as some ultra-Remainers predict, but armageddon seems to be as implausible an outcome of Brexit as joy-filled utopia is. Rather, it looks like being okay. If it’s not, good luck getting a national consensus in 2028 by which Leave voters and leaders agree with angry Rejoiners on what happened.
Rejoining can be done. But it would be extremely hard to achieve. It involves the capture of a party, or the creation of a new party, unifying that party and raising money, drafting a manifesto commitment, winning an overall majority at a general election, and winning a referendum in which the Rejoin party campaigns for the expensive reintroduction of British MEPs – that’ll be popular! – and then going back in. This is not an impossible outcome. It does appear, given the extent of the obstacles, to be on the madder end of the unlikely to downright mad spectrum, though.