Unfortunately, that is exactly what isn’t on offer and can never be on offer. There is nothing sensible and reasonable about signing up for a deal that is seriously worse than what we started with. There is also nothing sensible or reasonable about signing up to a deal that is unstable and cannot endure for any length of time.
Theresa May is trying to pull one of the most enormous confidence tricks in the history of British politics. She is insisting that only she stands between the great British public and chaos. In reality she has presided over a government that has been riddled with chaos and instability and if she gets her own way she will be dooming us to yet another period of vicious Tory infighting over Europe whilst much more important issues this country faces get neglected.
Her plan is to muddle through the next few weeks and to scare enough MPs and enough voters with the genuine problems of a hard Brexit to ensure that she can get her deal through Parliament and take Britain out of the EU. She is determined to deliver a small-deeds, no drama, “common sense” Brexit that makes the day we actually leave so undramatic that few people will notice much difference in their everyday lives.
That will give her a brief window of quiet in Spring 2019 when it will look like far too much fuss has been made about the whole issue and everything is going to turn out fine after all. She’ll get Hammond to issue a give-away budget and go to the country telling us that she’s putting an end to austerity and has cleverly steered us through the difficult bit and that ahead of us lie calmer waters.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The deal that has been struck guarantees a future crisis. Should the voters fall for her snap election propaganda then the second another Conservative government got itself back into power vicious infighting within its ranks would break out with even greater fury. The first time anyone in Britain finds that an EU rule has changed that they don’t like they are going to get cross and angry. It is bad enough to have decisions made via an opaque and complex process that your country is part of. It is a lot worse to have to follow decisions that you were never even consulted about. The second we are out of the EU and simply accepting changes in rules there is serious pressure to get free of that shameful rule taker status. Who is going to be pleased to accept a change in the rules that damages their interests when they know that they have no vote, no representatives and no officials?
Imagine what the Daily Mail or the Daily Express are going to make of every decision that Brussels issues that they disagree with. Actually, scrub that comment. Sometimes it is necessary to own a degree of legitimate national pride. Imagine what any one of us is going to feel the first time a decision is made by the EU that we feel is wrong. Why should anyone accept a ruling made by a decision-making body that contains no one from Britain?
If simply isn’t sustainable to sign up to following rules that you don’t make for any length of time. So the day after the Brexit deal is signed political chaos doesn’t end. It just takes a different form and lasts for longer. The far right will have a field day claiming that their wonderful vision of a free Britain has been betrayed. Every decision made by Brussels will be subjected to attacks and horrible distortions and the pressure will be on for us to get out of the deal that has been signed and go for a “proper” Brexit. There will be a succession of political crises caused by the tension of someone else making decisions that we don’t any longer have any say in making. If there is a large majority Conservative government then sooner of later one of those crisis will force the UK to pull out of the deal and go for a harder Brexit.
Economically this leaves us with a temporary surge of positive economic confidence the day a deal is finalised and then a slow sucking away of that confidence as it turns out that there really isn’t any long-term certainty about how Britain will be trading with Europe over the next decade. At a time of international trade wars and of yet another worldwide financial bubble this is not exactly a secure and stable basis for national economic success.
In such circumstances it is extremely dangerous to passively accept the stark choice that May is offering us. She is determined to convince the nation that it is either her deal or an immediate and highly disorganised hard Brexit or the deluge. My deal or no deal.
Those of us who see reality as a little more complex are going to have a hard time of it. We have only one small thing on our side. We have consistently told the truth and that truth has come to pass.
Remainers have always said that leaving the EU would result is us following rules we didn’t make or crashing out with a damaging no deal. That is now exactly what has happened. Leavers promised us a quick and easy victory. That has not.
So the time has come to expose their lies. Let’s see Theresa May publish the agreement she is so proud of and then let the people of this country decide what they make of it and want to do. Would they like this deal signed? Would they like no deal? Or would they like to call the whole thing off?
It is called democracy. It is called restoring realistic modern sovereignty. It is called putting the common sense interests of the British people above the interests of political fanatics.
Which is why it is called a People’s Vote.