Britain awakes on Saturday not to a new future outside the EU, but to political chaos, crisis and humiliation. Parliament has delivered a stinging final blow to the prime minister, her government, and the reputation of the UK political class. On the day Theresa May had repeatedly promised the UK would leave the EU, MPs rejected her exit agreement with Brussels for a third time. Britain is still in the EU but, legally, faces a catastrophic no-deal exit in 13 days. There is a way out of this woeful mess. But it will require a cross-party majority in parliament — plus the prime minister and her cabinet — finally to put nation before party.
The prime minister must first recognise her withdrawal agreement is dead. A fourth vote would be absurd. As one ex-minister has noted, the withdrawal agreement is supposed to endure for decades. It is entirely wrong for MPs to vote for it “at gunpoint”. Any chance that this deeply flawed agreement might have served as a bridge to one of a range of future relationships with the EU has been fatally undermined by parliament’s repeated rejections — and by Mrs May’s latest, desperate, gambit.
Her offer this week to Tory Brexit ultras to stand down if the deal passed would probably mean handing leadership of the vital next stage of negotiations with Brussels to a hardline Brexiter bent on ensuring the future relationship is as empty as possible. Mrs May’s political hara-kiri was a final misguided attempt to buy off the Brexit Bolsheviks of the so-called European Research Group. After three years of appeasement, she has ended up being destroyed by them.
Let there be no doubt: the ERG and Northern Ireland’s equally intransigent Democratic Unionist party bear most blame for the failure to deliver the result of the 2016 referendum. While a majority of MPs profoundly disagreed — like this newspaper — with the wisdom of leaving, many were ready to compromise to allow it to happen. Hardcore Brexit ultras would agree to nothing but the fantastical clean-break exit they craved. They cannot be allowed to take the country over the cliff into a no-deal crash-out, with perilous consequences for the UK’s prosperity and security.
The government must heed the will expressed more than once by a parliamentary majority, and avert that outcome on 12 April. Mrs May should request a lengthy extension, of a year or more, to the EU withdrawal process. This extension must not be used to prepare for what hardliners fancifully call a “managed” no-deal departure. Its purpose is to find a consensus around a softer Brexit involving closer economic and trade integration with the EU27.
This will mean the UK participating in European Parliament elections in May. Many Leave voters in 2016 will be angry at facing these polls three years later. Contrary to the false prospectus peddled by the Leave campaign, however, exiting the EU was never going to be quick and easy. Eurosceptic and extremist candidates will prosper. The elections will present a challenge, and an opportunity, for pro-EU forces to unite and organise — and for Remain supporters to show their numbers and ensure their voice cannot be ignored in the process of finally resolving Brexit.
MPs, commendably, took control of parliament this week to begin that process. In Wednesday’s indicative votes, the options that came closest to a majority were a softer Brexit, involving a customs union with the EU, and a confirmatory referendum on any chosen form of exit. With MPs set to seek a majority on Monday, these may form the basis of a way forward. Britain needs time to rethink Brexit — both the final destination, and how it gets there.