Forty Days and Forty Nights - to Brexit

This isn't an early blog about Lent. Easter is late this year, so Ash Wednesday doesn't fall till the 6th March.

No, this is about the time that's left to us before Brexit Day on the 29th March, forty days and forty nights. That's the same length of time as Lent (if you take out the six Sundays of Lent which don't count towards the total as Sundays are always feast days). Less than six weeks. Or put it another way. In 1939, war was declared on the 3rd September. If that were Brexit Day, then by now it would already be 25th July.

That's frighteningly close to an event that is probably Britain's biggest crisis since the last war. By now, whatever your hopes or fears about leaving the European Union, you'd have thought that the shape of our nation's future after the end of March would be looking clear. But not at all. Thanks to Theresa May and her government, the past two and half years since the referendum have resulted in a negotiated deal that has twice been comprehensively voted down in Parliament. It is baffling beyond belief to Leavers and Remainers alike, not to mention our frustrated EU partners, that she persists with this fantasy. One EU negotiator speaking today put the likelihood of the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal as around 90%. That would be terrible for trade and business, for police and security co-operation across Europe, for travel, for cultural and environmental collaboration and a whole lot else.

You don't need me to rehearse the litany of probable woes. Indeed, it's already a litany of actual woes. Each day it seems that another business announces that it's relocating its headquarters to the continent. Today Flybmi has gone into administration citing Brexit uncertainty. Here in the North East, the news that Nissan will not now be manufacturing the new X-Trail model at its Sunderland works has come as a heavy blow. The stockpiling of essential supplies including medicines has begun. There is talk of civil disorder, and plans to evacuate the Royal Family. The billions Brexit is already costing the nation are only part of the price we are paying. And our hapless Prime Minister and her cabinet hurl themselves like Gadarene swine towards the cliff edge dragging the nation in their slipstream. No wonder we are the laughing stock of Europe. It's hard not to feel ashamed of the way we have conducted ourselves since the vote.

Standing on this threshold of a Lent-length forty days' journey to Brexit, I ask myself what's to be done? I've nothing new to offer here, but I guess that the more people who try to challenge the Brexit groupthink and speak some sense into this bizarre and dangerous situation, the better.

The first thing is that we must defer Article 50. It is a nonsense to think we can safely depart from the EU at the end of March with no road-map even for the short-term future, no consensus about what our key relationship with the EU is going to look like after Brexit. You don't take off from the runway without knowing where your aircraft is taking you and how you are going to navigate the weather that lies ahead. You don't complete on a property purchase if the survey has thrown up matters that need resolving first. Or in the parables of Jesus, you check that you're building your house on rock, not on sand. You don't embark on a project without first counting the cost. Mrs May’s brinkmanship is making a hostage of this nation’s future. This close to B-Day, we must give ourselves more time. And while we are about it, Parliament must rule out no-deal as an option and get serious about negotiating realistically with the EU.

The second thing is that having deferred Brexit Day, we must go back to the electorate and hold a People's Vote to establish beyond doubt that leaving the European Union is what the nation wants. ,I've no patience for the riposte that says that having voted once on this subject, it would be a betrayal of democracy to do it again. On the contrary. Given the divided nation and Parliament that we are, it would be a betrayal of democracy not to check what the "will of the people" is now, in 2019. Democracy means that it is permitted to change our minds.

This is critically important when we all know so much more about what Brexit would entail than we did in 2016. There was so much that was wrong with the 2016 referendum, not least excluding 16 and 17 year olds from the vote, excluding UK citizens who had lived abroad in EU countries for more than 15 years, and not stipulating that a majority of 60% or two-thirds of votes cast would be needed to effect such a major constitutional change. A People's Vote would allow those mistakes to be corrected. One of the options on the ballot paper would obviously be to remain in the EU as we are, on the current terms. I've no idea whether it would secure a safe majority to reverse the disastrous 2016 vote. But it's important to find out. Democrats have nothing to fear from this. If Brexiters are convinced that the case has been made for leaving the EU, let the public endorse it if that is what it believes. Why are so many people, even MPs who voted Remain in 2016 (like my own elected member) afraid of doing this?

The third thing is that we should use these forty days to try to clear our heads. Groupthink is a dangerous mentality because you can never argue against it, never persuade anyone that there is another side to an issue. Our government has got it into its head that there is only one direction in which to travel, and that is out of the European Union. For all the counter-arguments, all the evidence that this would damage not only the UK economy but also its standing in the world and its networks of influence and collaboration, for all the threats that we face, this government has only one song to sing, which is that "the people have decided" and the referendum outcome is sacrosanct.

I want to ask, respectfully but plainly, what would it take to shift this government's mind, break out of this slanging-match we are in that becomes more hysterical by the day, and instead, get a grown-up conversation going? How dire do the threats have to be before Mrs May notices? What evidence would need to be presented for her to revisit her beloved red lines? What arguments would it take for her at least to contemplate changing her mind? If only she could show a modicum of self-doubt! If only she could think it possible that she was mistaken, could entertain the idea that our nation had misjudged things. If only she could admit that it's allowed to step back and think again. Prudence at a time of crisis is a virtue in leaders. This is just such a time.

If only... if only... Well, in the Bible, forty days and forty nights are often set aside as a period of preparation, self-examination and prayer. Think of Moses and Elijah on the mountain, think of Jesus himself in the desert. That's one of the reasons we observe Lent. Wouldn't it be a good idea for our elected representatives to try to do this in the spirit of a pre-Brexit Lent, to take time to ponder, reflect, and yes, in desperate times - if they can - to pray. And ask themselves if it doesn't make sense to step back from the brink while there is still time.

But what Lent is chiefly for is to prepare for Easter, for the commemoration of Jesus' death and resurrection. Right now, I can certainly see a death lying ahead on the other side of these forty days of Brexit. But no resurrection, I'm afraid, no new life or even the promise of it. Just a no-deal abyss into which we are destined to tumble if we do not come to our senses. It's utterly reprehensible that our leaders have allowed this nation to sleep-walk into disaster. Deferring Article 50 and holding a People's Vote seem to me to be the only way of averting it.

You can tell that I'm writing with some feeling. That's because I'm deeply afraid of the future that is rushing down the slipway towards us next month. In my view we have been badly let down by our leaders. I want to believe that it's not too late to change course. I wish my waters were telling me that it's likely to happen. Do I believe in miracles that can win minds and hearts? I suppose I must at least believe in the power of persuasion, for otherwise, why am I even bothering to write? I don’t believe in praying blindly that some deus ex machina will get us out of a mess for which we only have ourselves to blame.

I just can’t see how this can end well. I’m proud to be European. And I’m proud (on good days - there aren’t many of those just now) to be British. But I confess to sending this blog out into the world with a very heavy heart. If the lights go out at the end of March, my generation won’t see them lit again in our lifetime.