Politics is full of ironies, and a big irony for the Prime Minister today is that it seems her best chance for getting her deal adopted is to do the very thing she now strongly rejects - postpone Brexit and hold another referendum on relations with the EU.
It does seem that despite her attempts to frighten people with the terrible consequences of a 'no-deal' exit on March 29th next year, the prospects for her deal being passed by the House of Commons still look very thin. One problem she has is that many people simply do not believe that Parliament would allow a 'no deal' Brexit to happen. Let's deal with that issue first, then we can go on to look at the referendum issue.
A 'no deal' exit at the end of next March would be truly horrendous. The 'no deal' guidelines issued by the EU Commission give little comfort. Whole UK industries would be decimated in one swipe and much of the rest forced into a recession. I have heard people comment that things can't possibly be that bad since we got on quite well without the EU before 1973. Now, without wanting comment on what life was like before 1973 the key point is that today, after 45 years, the complex fabric, with millions of strands and networks, both regulated and informal, of life in the UK has been developed on the basis of relationships with the continent. Our economic development since 1973 rests on such relationships, and tearing them out in one thrust will immediately cancel much of such development. To suddenly tear that up now will have very serious repercussions, much more than we can imagine now. There will be no direct loss of life, but in other respects the dislocations will resemble war.
Edmund Burke, the 18th century Tory philosopher, counselled against the type of revolution (in his case the French Revolution) that (ironically) many Tories now promote in the sense of a 'no deal' Brexit. He said, for example:
'it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society'..............'The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity; and, therefore, no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man’s nature or to the quality of his affairs. When I hear the simplicity of contrivance aimed at and boasted of in any new political constitutions, I am at no loss to decide that the artificers are grossly ignorant of their trade or totally negligent of their duty' (see page 52 at https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/burke/revfrance.pdf)
But to get back to the point, which is the condition under which May's deal seems most likely to come to prevail. That is if, following what look now the inevitable defeat of May's deal in the Commons in January, Brexit is postponed by revoking Article 50, and a referendum called. As has already been mooted by civil servants (I recall reading in The Times) the referendum ballot paper could have two sets of options. First, the remain/leave option and second (which would count if leave won) the choice between May's deal and 'no deal'. In this contest no doubt many would urge a 'leave' response in the first ballot (although I would opt for 'remain'), and they may be successful, in which case the vote hangs on the second question which almost certainly would give May's deal victory.
Of course the road to this being achieved is difficult. It would require a lot more than one or two simple votes by the Commons. Legislation would have to be organised, not only to postpone Brexit, but also to organise the referendum, and that could only be passed by consistent cross party collaboration, and possibly a serious division in the Conservative Party. This will be difficult to achieve. But then I don't really see much alternative. It is too late to negotiate something else, and anyway it would require a determined Government to do so, which does not exist.
But the alternative is bleak indeed.
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