Why another EU referendum is becoming inevitable

The Conservative Party led us into the EU Referendum in the expectation that one way or another, the issue of EU membership would be resolved. It hasn't been. The exercise has been a disaster and now the only two plausible scenarios that seem to hold at the moment is that either the UK will leave  the EU in what will be (at best) a continuing fog of uncertainty next March or that the UK's withdrawal will be cancelled.

What is pretty clear to me is that whatever the arguments may be about what we did or did not vote for as an alternative to EU membership, people did not vote either explicitly, or implicitly, for 'no deal'. Yet that is precisely the fate that awaits us at the end of March 2019.

Hence we need a further vote to determine whether the UK wishes to leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement.

The Leave campaign seemed pretty clear upon what it saw as the consequence of leaving when it said: 'It is overwhelmingly in the EU’s - particularly Germany’s - interests to agree a friendly UK-EU free trade deal.'   http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/briefing_trade.html


Well, it looks like it's not happening. No doubt many Tories will blame it on the EU, but whatever the cause (after all the UK is the country that wanted to leave), the point is that a central part of the case for Leave has collapsed. The notion of a 'friendly free trade deal' doesn't exist as a practical political proposition , or at least short of major shifts by the parties involved, it seems very unlikely to exist. The Leavers simply didn't base their argument on there being a 'no deal' - what they did do instead was base the argument on there being some sort of free trade (maybe with a lot of pluses) with the EU. The voters have been short-changed. This democratic deficit need to be urgently repaired.

At root the flaw in the Leavers position reflects a fundamental problem with the turn to nationalist-identity politics. They expect the EU to follow the same 'rational' economic logic that the nationalists have decided to ignore in favour of promoting their own sovereign identities.  What this doesn't take into account is the fact that the 'other' (in this case the EU) want to preserve their own identities, a strategic goal which ranks much higher than the prospect of tactical economic losses which are, in any case, relatively much bigger for the UK than the EU. Even states such as Austria, Poland, Hungary, most influenced by the so-called eurosceptic right in fact want to keep the UK in the EU partly because they want the UK as an ally within the EU.  

I cannot think of any plausible scenario whereby Mrs May can now deliver a withdrawal agreement with the EU. Briefly, the available options have been:

A) The 'Chequers' Agreement. The EU will not touch this with a barge-pole as it would threaten the integrity of the EU. It is a fundamental 'identity' issue for the EU that countries cannot 'pick and choose' elements of the customs and/or single market arrangements. The only value of Chequers has been to preserve the Government's notion that they have a plan. Apparently a bad plan is better than no plan!
B) The so-called 'Canada free trade deal'. This may well be acceptable to the EU provided the UK was willing to treat Northern Ireland as a separate customs zone. But this is  a non-starter for two key reasons. First because the DUP would not vote for it, scuppering any Withdrawal Agreement, and second because it is such a pale version of the current economic relationship with the EU that many Conservative MPs would not vote for it either in the Commons.
C) Staying in the EU Customs Area. This is more-or-less the Labour position, and which comes closer to solving the Irish border issue. But this is unacceptable to too many in the Conservative Party, especially as after negotiation it may resolve into the UK also being effectively in the Single Market as well. 
C) No agreement. In practice contingency measures would be put in place by both the UK and the EU so that there would be little, if any, immediate catastrophic impact at the end of March 2019. But after then it would be death by a thousand cuts as the necessary bureaucracy of VAT return forms, standards certification and so on are implemented, all proceeding in a fog of uncertainty which would dramatically reduce the UK's ability to negotiate with anybody about many things and put off anybody who wants to make long term plans about the UK.

If there could be an agreement about Ireland then possibly a Withdrawal Agreement and, maybe, a vague agreement on the future relationship could be signed between the EU and the UK and the details sorted out in the 'transitional' period which lasts until the end of 2020. But the EU, it seems, has had enough of vaguery, especially on the Irish subject.

The Leavers hopes of finding suitable allies inside the EU so that they could divide and conquer has failed miserably. If we treat this as an identity clash then clearly the EU will win and we will lose. Even the Irish (whose economy is now expanding rapidly) will lose much less with 'no deal' than us since only 13 per cent of their exports go to the UK. On the other hand well over 50 per cent of the UK's exports are dependent either on direct trade with the EU or on trade concessions organised through the EU, and which will not be available if we 'crash out' without agreement.

So we need a vote on this reality. A straight referendum choice between the only two clear options available at the moment: 'no deal' or Remain seems the best option, since these are the only certainties available.  The Brextieers for their part, now say that a 'no deal' is 'no problem'. They can say that if they want, but that was not what appeared to be the choice in 2016. Let's now put it to the voters. The Brexiteers have failed to generate a different option that can be implemented in the real world. The rest of us need to get on with life.

Some relevant references:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/contents/enacted

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-ireland/eu-could-tweak-irish-border-backstop-to-win-britains-approval-lawmaker-idUKKCN1LK25C

https://www.qub.ac.uk/brexit/Brexitfilestore/Filetoupload,812529,en.pdf

https://theconversation.com/backstop-option-for-irish-border-after-brexit-the-difference-between-eu-and-uk-proposals-explained-97963

https://www.accountancyage.com/2018/03/28/uk-exit-eu-vat-regime-january-2022/

https://www.politico.eu/article/theresa-may-caves-in-on-brexiteer-amendments-to-head-off-rebellion/

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/a-no-deal-brexit-need-not-be-a-disaster-for-irish-exports-1.3636084

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43212899

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44845933

https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1018859164662190080