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.
Objectors will say: ‘it is too soon’. There is the legacy of the Peoples’ Vote campaign for a confirmatory referendum which, however unfairly, was portrayed as an attempt to re-run the Brexit referendum to get a different result. In any event, it failed.
So, what is ‘too soon’? There is no manual which defines an appropriate interval. 30? 20? 10? years. Scottish nationalists have been campaigning for an independence referendum since they lost the last one (by a bigger margin than Brexit), and with no loss of enthusiasm. Westminster seems to have decided that the timing of a Scottish referendum is predicated on evidence of a decisive shift of public opinion which is not the case in Scotland but is apparently the case for Brexit.
Some will argue that these issues will need to be debated at the next General Election. To seek a mandate to seek a mandate? Why? The world is changing very fast, and time is not a costless commodity. The government has a huge majority in parliament should it decide to act. It would however need to build as big a consensus as possible.
There would have to be buy-in, not just from committed Europeans in the Lib Dems, Labour, the Greens and the Nationalists. There are many neutrals and many Conservatives who are conflicted but do not wish to be conscripted into a Reform-led defence of the current ‘hard’ Brexit.
Language is also important and any referendum question would necessarily be couched in broad terms. It should not be over-prescriptive -‘re-join the customs union’ or ‘re-join the Single Market’- and allow for new and bespoke approaches. The essential requirement is a mandate to energise the process of engagement. Something like: ‘to negotiate a closer, comprehensive, cooperation agreement with the EU covering economic, security and political matters’ or words to that effect.
The damage Brexit has caused cannot and should not be undone by stealth but only by the British public which voted for it. Soon.
* Sir Vince Cable is the former MP for Twickenham and was leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2017 until 2019. He also served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2015.
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17 Comments
The main problem in 2016 was the unsatisfactory process. Look at how NZ did the move from fptp to pr. 1 do you want change? Y/N 2 which of these 4 options do you prefer? 3 preferred optio q2 v status quo. The 2nd brexit referendum was to see if the suggested alternative (either May’s or Johnson’s deal) was preferred to the status quo. It was the process that made the UK look like idiots to the outside world.
Labour suffered very heavy losses in places like Sunderland, Wigan, Wakefield, Hartlepool, Grimsby, St Helens, and Barnsley to a party that was formerly known as the Brexit Party. None of those voters, dare I say it, were clamoring to rejoin the EU. How do you get to a position to change that mindset? Those and many other communities felt little benefit from membership, and to be honest, it was difficult to argue against. Personally, I think that wording is far to ambiguous for voters, it should be more clear-cut.
Something like: ‘to negotiate a closer, comprehensive, cooperation agreement with the EU covering economic, security and political matters’ or words to that effect
No far too vague. The Electoral Commission would, quite rightly, never allow it. After all the most basic question is: would the referendum authorise this, or a subsequent, government to rejoin the EU (accepting whatever conditions the EU attaches, such as the Euro, Schengen, etc) without seeking any further mandate?
The suggested question doesn’t make it crystal clear whether or not that would be covered — it would be quite possible for someone to campaign for ‘Yes’ while reassuring voters that it wasn’t talking about ‘reversing Brexit’, for example — and so it is not an acceptable question.
“Politicians are not allowed to say that the public made a mistake”
A truly democratic politician would accept that voters make their decisions based on their own life circumstances and not expect them to simply echo the preferences of a middle class liberal.
To disagree and vote accordingly is not a mistake.
Labour now largely have the measure of Starmer’s failings. He is complacent, over-cautious, and unimaginative. He has no real political beliefs. Apart from that, he’s OK!
Well, Weshabana Burnham now has to put together a pitch, one that will convince the party electorate that a leadership change is worth making. There has to be a big idea in there somewhere. There also has to be a cash-splash for the instant gratification of the Red Wall voters and the soft left. Thirdly and awkwardly, there also has to be enough sense of fiscal responsibility not to spook the bond markets.
An explicit aim to rejoin the EU could provide the big idea. It could also be “sold” to the bond markets as the way the UK recovers enough growth to justify the higher spending and borrowing that Weshabana will offer. If my name was Weshabana, I’d go for this!
The snag? The EU, seeing Farage waiting in the wings, won’t dare let us back in.
The most important thing this article overlooks is the divisive aspect of the “EU” question. As other have pointed out or at least implied many voters in 2016 made their decision in their own perceived interest. The inability of many “committed Remainers” to acknowledge this or that many voters based their decision not on the economics but other factors such as freedom of movement was part of the problem.
No one, except possibly a few “committed Remainers” wants another period of wrangling such as followed the 2016 Referendum. I believe that this is the reason that the Government does not seek to rejoin the EU.
I think the better approach to when to consider rejoining is to wait for a General Election, then put it in the manifesto. That way there is democratic mandate.
Whatever your view of referenda as a means of deciding political issues it would be unwise to suggest overturning a decision taken by a referendum without holding a further referendum on the same issue. I agree that a two stage process, set out in advance, is required. The first referendum to confirm that the electorate does want to rejoin. The second to confirm agreement with the negotiate terms.
I also think that many of the regions of the UK, for example fishermen, felt, rightly that their interests were overlooked. In favour of the interests of London and other major cities. If that is true the it follows that the negotiators for any deal to rejoin should be as wide as possible,
Having an initial referendum on EU membership is like asking anyone to make a major decision such as on a house transaction or a job change without knowing the price or the salary on offer.
There’s nothing to stop any Government negotiating terms for a re-entry into the EU.
Whether the terms are acceptable is then up to the electorate in a referendum.
Having said this I can’t imagine that they would be acceptable given that a substantial number of the electorate don’t appreciate that rejoining would mean that we’d not get anything like the same terms as previously.
By luck or good fortune we never joined the Euro currency. For sure, re-joining, the EU, they would expect us to adopt the Euro. The British people are fickle, but not stupid, and joining the Euro will never be accepted. Reversing Brexit is a whist-full remainer dream, but frankly, a non-starter.
Peter Martin,
“Having an initial referendum on EU membership is like asking anyone to make a major decision such as on a house transaction or a job change without knowing the price or the salary on offer.”
So why did you Leavers insist that the 2016 referendum be conducted on precisely that basis? Probably because you realised that if the referendum had been held only after all the Mayhem about the Irish backstop etcetera, people would have given up on the Brexit idea!
Now you want to make the Remainers play Queensbury Rules, when you Leavers won by hitting below the belt!
I suggest we advocate as a first step a citizens’ assembly to look at our relations with the European Union.
@ David Allen “Now you want to make the Remainers play Queensbury Rules, when you Leavers won by hitting below the belt!”
I was, and still am, a Remainer, and as far as I know so was David Cameron who made the decision to call the referendum. So I’m afraid your comment addressed to Peter Martin is more than a bit misdirected to put it mildly.
David Raw,
I’m not talking about Cameron’s decision to call the referendum. I’m talking about the way the Leave campaigns refused to answer any of the critical questions about how Leaving would work – the Irish backstop, the border in the Irish Sea, the special treatment for Ulster, etcetera, which if you remember, caused 3 years of chaos before Boris finally got a bad deal in place (later improved by Sunak). The Leavers lied about how awkward all that would be.
Peter Martin nevertheless dared to criticise the Remainer idea of an initial rejoin referendum: “Having an initial referendum on EU membership is like asking anyone to make a major decision such as on a house transaction or a job change without knowing the price or the salary on offer.” A bit rich, surely?
To be fair to Peter M, he doesn’t often make such blatantly hypocritical remarks. But he did this time. So, your comment addressed to me is moe than a bit misdirected – to put it mildly!
@ David Allen @ David Raw
Of course you can disagree with me on the question of the EU – that’s fair enough. but why make an accusation of hypocrisy?
We leave relationships all the time without knowing the full consequences in advance. These could be job related or the more personal relationships that I seem to remember caused me quite a bit of angst in my younger days! 🙂
It’s quite impractical to negotiate exactly what might happen in advance. What do you suggest we should have done with regards to the EU? It sounds to me you’re saying there should have been two referendums. The first referendum should have been about whether we should leave if the terms were satisfactory. The second should have been on whether the terms were satisfactory.
The likely outcome would have been a set of conditions which wouldn’t have been satisfactory for anyone. Then we would have rejected them and stayed.
Of course this is what you wanted all along! Fair enough. But, if so, why did nearly all Lib Dems vote to have the referendum we had? Later on you made the point that it was only “advisory”. Sure, but why not say it earlier so everyone knew that it wasn’t binding?
The failure to explain this at the time made it de-facto binding if not de-jure.
@Tom Bailey “By luck or good fortune we never joined the Euro currency. For sure, re-joining, the EU, they would expect us to adopt the Euro.”
de jure, but not de facto. Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Sweden are in the EU, but not the Eurozone. Only Denmark has a de jure opt-out. The others are officially obliged to join when they meet the criteria, but they are not obliged to try to meet the criteria (and they don’t, and nor are they pressured to as far as I am aware).
Even if we couldn’t copy Denmark’s opt-out, we still wouldn’t have to join the Euro in practice.
@ Peter Martin Congrats on the outcome at Valley Parade last night. The Trotters deserved it.
As for Europe, Cameron thought he would win, which wasn’t that clever (as Burnham might well find out soon) just as he only just squeaked it in Scotland.
David,
Thanks. Unfortunately I couldn’t get a ticket For the BCFC away game. But my local had it on TV and I soon found myself chatting away happily to one of their supporters. It’s a pity that we have to be segregated at matches. It didn’t used to be this way.
Daniel,
It’s not so much the euro itself which is the problem. It’s the austerity inducing rules of the SGP and Fiscal Compact that go with it. When we were in the EU we weren’t exempt from those rules even though we didn’t use the euro. Cameron and Osborne didn’t exactly explain their austerity policies as being connected with them but they acted as if this was their motivation.
I think Vince Cable understood all this and how the austerity in the previous years led to the 2016 vote going the way it did.
One problem the party has in supporting a second referendum on Europe is that it opposes a second referendum on Scottish Independence. Could this be because of the result? I did vote for Independence back then, but would not now because of a number of changed circumstances. One reason I voted for Independence is that I feared Scotland could be dragged out of Europe by a Brexit vote in England, which the Lib-Dem party leadership said during the campaign could never happen, then it happened.