Dodging the bullets of Brexit

It's fair to say that I've never been as nervous about any political decision as last night's vote to extend Britain's exit from the EU. True, all of the noises beforehand were about the length of the delay, not whether there should be one at all. And no-one seemed to want to repeat the previous mistake of a mere technical extension of a couple of weeks, which, while it did finally push the Maybot onto a new track, moaning and wheezing as it went, it didn't and couldn't actually solve anything. But it was still possible that the Maybot might have squeaked something especially foolish or that Macron would have been feeling more vindictive. Fortunately the stars were reasonably well aligned.

For me, the stakes are extremely high. While the Czech Republic (to its great credit) has made a lot of positive noises about protecting the few thousand British workers residents here, that depends on the British government reciprocating the rights of Czech workers resident in the UK. The official statement says the UK will do this for all EU workers currently resident there, but a statement of intent is not the same as a legally binding agreement. So it was entirely possible that come Saturday morning I could technically have been rendered an illegal immigrant. Not a fun prospect at all.

Granted, that wasn't very likely. And granted further that doesn't mean the Czech Republic would kick me out of the country. It may not even have been very likely that if I left the country (which I'm planning to do for Easter) I wouldn't have been able to get back in. But it's awfully difficult to find much assurance in probabilities when its your neck on the line. Would Britain have been treated instantly as a third country ? Would some special arrangements have been made ? We'll never know. The bottom line is that I didn't sleep much last night.


I recently suggested what sort of Brexit I could tolerate, were there to be no way of averting it entirely. The closer we are to Brexit In Name Only, the better. My ideals would be membership of the customs union, single market, and freedom of movement, thus preserving the major economic advantages and political ideals of EU membership, though sacrificing the political influence that comes with it. Where my red lines would be drawn I honestly don't know. I like freedom of movement as an ideal from a moral standpoint, but I also have an obvious selfish reason to support it. What might make me feel better about the whole prospect would be if there was some vaguely plausible plan proposed as to how to deal with withdrawing it : how am I, as a non-permanent resident on a (basically) permanent contract supposed to deal with this ? What exactly is it I'm supposed to do ? Just how much more restricted would I be ? Presumably not totally - there are, after all, plenty of non-EU citizens living here, but without knowing for sure this is an enormously uncomfortable position to be in.

The stay of execution that's been granted leads me to wonder along similar lines of compromise. Never mind what might actually happen next. My question is : what's the most reasonable course of action politicians could now take ? I mean reasonable in the real world, that is, accounting for the different opinions and strength of feelings on all sides, including - especially ! - those I don't agree with.

There are still three possible end states : leaving with an agreement, leaving without an agreement, or not leaving at all. The middle option now seems very unlikely but it's not impossible. The question is what process we should use to decide between the available choices. We're not out of the woods yet - we're in a clearing in the woods, a rather pleasant sunny spot, but the dark and gloomy woods still surround us, still filled with ravenous creatures and dangerous pitfalls that eventually we have to confront.

A 6 month extension is not quite as long as might be ideal, but long enough - as Tusk said - to allow us to completely change strategy. Therefore the most reasonable option would seem to be to continue the cross-party talks for a few weeks or perhaps a month. Either the talks will produce something acceptable to both sides, or they won't. If they fail, then it's either a general election or a second referendum. The problem with a general election is the risk of another hung Parliament so that might not solve anything. The most reasonable thing to do, in that case, would seem to be a second referendum.

If the talks succeed, then the leaders have to go back to their parties and gain wider support - at least enough to put it to a parliamentary vote. If it fails, we have some time to resume the talks, but not much. We might be able to vote a few times on revised compromise agreements, but not indefinitely. Again, a general election or second referendum would be necessary.

It's also unclear if Labour could accept any kind of deal without a confirmatory referendum. If it was BINO or close then they might, but anything else seems doubtful - they'd be risking very large numbers of defections and electoral catastrophe. It is possible, though, that the House would vote on and reject a second referendum. In which case Labour could probably escape blame, the deal would go through, and there wouldn't be much we could do about it.

If a general election wouldn't necessarily break the impasse, would a second referendum do any better if it was to occur ? Perhaps. Polls show that Remain is in the lead, followed by No Deal and then - oddly - May's Deal. My guess is that the first two are clear options that people understand, whereas May's Deal is a weird, highly uncertain compromise - even if it's objectively better than No Deal, no-one likes it. So while Parliament has all but rejected No Deal, it would be foolish to exclude this from the options. Brexit supporters would never accept the legitimacy of such a vote. Heck, I don't think we can really have a vote in which the second most popular option is disallowed, even if it's a really shitty option. Also, excluding it would likely lead to massive loss of faith in the political system, driving voters towards ever more extreme parties. Giving them the option won't stop them protesting if they lose (nor should it !), but does prevent them claiming the result is invalid. The risk that people would vote for No Deal is real, but denying them the option is only likely to inflame support for it even further, alienating those who might have voted Remain instead.

The trickiest part is how to get a decisive result from a referendum which needs at least three options. One of these will be May's Revised Deal, which might be more popular than the current version. Still, an equal split would be just as bad as a hung parliament. We could in principle select the option which wins the most votes, but because the choices are not entirely dissimilar this wouldn't help. For instance, if slightly more voted for No Deal, then there could still be an overall majority for a softer form or no Brexit at all. Conversely, if slightly more voted for Remain, then there could be an overall majority for leaving (with or without a deal). If only, say, 40% voted for Remain with 30% each for Deal or No Deal, who (apart from Noel Edmunds) could honestly say that the people preferred to stay in ?

So while a second referendum could in principle settle the issue decisively, it might well not. The way to avoid this is probably through a transferable vote, where everyone ranks their preferences such that their second preferences are counted if there's no majority for any one option. This guarantees a majority for a single decision and forces voters to compromise. That option is not possible for Parliamentary elections but could be applied to a second referendum.

All of these options carry risks and uncertainties. All of them still allow the most radical options of leaving without a deal or simply calling the whole thing off. The question now that everyone should be asking themselves is simple : which option do I dislike the least ? We might yet get a definitive clean break or choose to stay, but if we're going to get anywhere at all we have to at least try and compromise.

(Here's my secret preference : go back to the EU and get an indefinite extension. They could allow us to leave whenever we want (the deal includes a 2 year transition period, so no cliff edge), so long as we ratify the withdrawal agreement. Let's just make our status as "cats-who-want-to-leave-but-not-really" official and be done with it.)