Brexit enters unchartered waters
The Prime Minister has just lost three senior colleagues including Middle East Minister Alistair Burt, who is well-known to the Kurds and widely admired. The Government has lost control of parliament, which will debate and order its Brexit priorities in indicative votes.
This is not how parliament should work. The government, in the main, proposes legislation, wins it or loses it, and is held to account for its actions. Even if parliament now devises a plan that commands a majority, ministers need not accept and advocate it.
Burt has in the past rightly argued that MPs should not vote on military intervention because it blurs the distinction between ministers and backbenchers. But he and others felt impelled to embrace an emergency action to break the logjam and resigned to do so.
If parliament fails to either define an alternative that the EU and the government can accept then a general election looks likely. Fear of losing Brexit may yet encourage Brexit hardliners to swallow their reservations and endorse the May/EU deal.
If some MPs on the government side and in the associated Northern Ireland Democratic Unionist Party refuse the deal in the next Meaningful Vote, if allowed by the Speaker, there is another way of getting it passed but one that is not trouble-free.
The 2016 referendum was badly conceived and executed but the brute fact is that we decided to leave the EU. It doesn't matter enough that the campaign was marred in many ways. Nor is there any merit in saying a new referendum would include those too young to vote in 2016. Both can be said about any public vote.
But the precise meaning of the referendum result was left to an increasingly weak Prime Minister who did not seek a wider consensus, even in her own cabinet, before triggering the process of departure.
The campaign for a People's Vote crudely kept the option on the table. but the very term implies there hasn't already been one and puts people's backs up. Many leavers feel they are being disrespected and patronised as bigots. The average winning margin in each constituency was only 2,000 people. The question is what will cause the least possible further division and respect democracy.
In another referendum, the least is that the campaign stresses that a good faith effort has been made, that this revealed huge objective difficulties hardly discussed in the referendum, that leaving is feasible but so momentous that it needs confirming, and that there should be a massive effort to address the domestic drivers of Brexit.
Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson was the star turn at the maybe million-plus strong rally in London, whose main slogan was to revoke Brexit, but where Watson told marchers that he's prepared to allow May's deal through parliament provided there is a referendum between that Deal and Remain, a canny move organised by two Labour MPs including Tony Blair's parliamentary successor.
Watson recently established a social democratic faction within the Labour Party to stem defections to the new Independent Group. Can Watson now persuade Labour MPs to follow his advice. Will Labour MPs abstaining or supporting the May Deal get it over the line?
All this will take time and make it possible for new leaderships in the UK (May hasn't long to go) and the EU to seek a new relationship to maximise the unity of Europe, with either the UK in the EU or in close relationships that make it difficult for Russia, China and America under Trump to divide and weaken Europe for their own different ends.
The EU bargaining strategy has not been subjected to the same critical focus as British strategy. According to the Daily Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Sigmar Gabriel, Angela Merkel's recent vice-chancellor, urged the EU to rewrite the Withdrawal Agreement or risk geostrategic oblivion in a G-2 world run by US and China, warning against temptations to punish a nuclear-armed, military ally with the world's premier financial hub.
He cites Gabriel saying that "Brexit will damage Europe's role in the world in a way that we Europeans currently seem unable to grasp" and that "We're the last political vegetarians in a world of meat-eaters. When the British go, everybody will think we have become vegans."
Can more time with more emollient and sophisticated leaders and debate calm people's shattered nerves and allow a better deal on the long-term relations between the EU and the UK or an EU, including the UK, which reforms itself.
Burt elegantly makes the first point: "…if we leave well, we can remain engaged in a new way, and should aim to be a vibrant partner, outside the EU but contributing to the future of Europe and beyond at a time when the UK’s influence and skills will be much in demand as we face significant common challenges."
Some will always say that any final vote to remain would be a stab in the back and cheat democracy. My hunch is that in the balance of risk, allowing a final say on a decision that we stumbled into in 2016 is the least worst approach, whether we say Yes or No. Britain and the EU can then both avoid poisoning relationships and settle matters in a much calmer way. Easy to say, difficult to achieve, but worth a try?
Gary Kent is the Secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). He writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity. The address for the all-party group is appgkurdistan@gmail.com.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
