Brexit: The Prime Minister Speaks

So Mrs May has come back from Salzburg empty-handed.

Brexit-watchers can hardly be surprised. The Northern Ireland border was always going to be a tough challenge if the Good Friday Agreement was going to be honoured. As was finding a modus vivendi with the other 27 EU nations unless it was going to be on the basis of the Single Market and Customs Union. The impossibility of squaring the circle is the right metaphor. You can find as good a match as you want, and you can get closer and closer an infinite number of times. But you can never make the circumferences or areas exactly equal. It all comes down to π.

Salzburg is Mozart's birthplace. Its name literally means the Castle of Salt. Well, the EU leadership has certainly gone through the PM's Chequers proposals like a dose of salts. How she must have wished for some Mozartian Magic Flute to come to her rescue, confer wisdom, protect her against her foes, lead her into the right path! Instead, negotiations on these two critical points have reached an impasse. The EU is clearly in no mood to bend to her wishes. So she has no room to manoeuvre unless she compromises on both of them.  And as she keeps reminding us, there is no Plan B other than to crash out of the European Union with no deal.

The Prime Minister has just spoken to the nation. The robust tone was consistent throughout her short speech, the Leitmotif being "we cannot accept...". Some of her red lines will find ready agreement across the nation, such as "we cannot accept the break-up of the United Kingdom". Of course not. But as everyone can now see, this is a non-trivial risk for the Union, especially those who live and work in Northern Ireland. I don't suppose many people foresaw this when they voted Leave in 2016. Like the false prophets in Jeremiah, the cry was "peace, peace, where there is no peace". And the cavalier way some leading proponents of Brexit are ready to treat the Good Friday Agreement is both breathtaking, and desperately sad.

But what about her opening "we cannot accept"? She said today, "we cannot accept anything that does not respect the result of the referendum". This begs so many big questions, all of which have been fully rehearsed in the two years the nation has been debating the consequences of the vote. I don't want to plough in well-worn furrows. We were reminded ad nauseam by Brexiters that Parliament is sovereign, and this includes its powers to rescind what has been decided in the past - which is precisely why the referendum and Parliamentary endorsement of it was to reverse the decision first made by the nation in 1975 to confirm our membership of the EU (with the strong support of the Daily Mail - newspapers can change their minds too!).

Add to that the clear proviso that the referendum was advisory to Parliament, and it really won't do lamely to appeal to the referendum result as if it were set in stone like "the laws of the Medes and Persians that can never be revoked". This is immature politics that devalues the intelligence of voting people and infantilises them. In a democratic society, we are free to change our minds, and frequently do at general elections. As I've said, the second EU vote was itself a change of mind following the first.

There's one more issue here, and I recall writing about it in an earlier blog. We know that the majority of elected members in Parliament were for Remain. Not just by a margin of a few percent like the UK electors, but a really significant majority. The point is this. If these MPs believed in 2016 that it was in the interests of the UK to stay in the European Union, what changed with the referendum result? Remainer MPs should be principled enough not to sacrifice their convictions on the altar of a public vote, especially when it is as close as the result was two years ago. They are not delegates who must vote as instructed by their constituencies. They are independent representatives who, having regard for the views of their constituents, nevertheless are free to vote, and indeed must always vote, in accordance with what their conscience tells them is in the national interest, without fear or favour.

What has happened in Parliament that even our Prime Minister, who is undoubtedly a woman to whom principle and conscience are important, is enslaved to this theory that the referendum result is inviolable and sacrosanct? Yes of course, to act with integrity, to follow principle and your own conscience in the face of fierce and loud opposition does take courage. It is fatally easy to be compromised when the stakes are so high and the pressures very great. And who appreciates the demands that are placed upon political leaders in times like these? I'm not at all defending the PM's approach to Brexit when I say that we can all feel for her in these ordeals she faces, not only among her EU colleagues, but (especially, I think) the brutal EU-psychodramas that the Conservative Party has enjoyed acting out for so many decades now. "Bastards", John Major called the far-right Tories when it came to Maastricht. You get the point.

I'm not expecting the PM to read this. But if by chance she were to, here's what I'd want to say to her.

1. None of this fiasco was of your making. You were landed with this poisoned chalice by your predecessor. Having promised he would see the consequences of the referendum through, he promptly walked away from his duty. I wonder how he can sleep at night.

2. Most of us do not want Brexit to be a disaster for the nation. We want you to succeed in your negotiations, not just to get the best deal for Britain, but what is best for Europe too, in the spirit of friendship, understanding and peace-building that is why this EU family exists in the first place. We want to go on being friends, partners and allies of the EU27. To crash out would sour relationships that are immensely important not only to our immediate neighbours and ourselves, but geopolitically too.

3. Don't underestimate how big a loss the UK's leaving the EU will be to the twenty-seven. It's not just the four freedoms or our payments into its budget. It's about the real and deep partnerships that have been so carefully built up across areas such as security, science, culture, environmental care and medicine as well. EU leaders are not punishing Britain for leaving, but they are sad about it, and that helps to explain some of the tough rhetoric coming out of Brussels. The parting of friends is always painful, and we are seeing this being acted out as we watch.

4. Please don't make our nation the laughing-stock of Europe and the world. What happened at Salzburg was humiliating, not just for you personally but for all of us who love our country and count ourselves fortunate to be British. Negotiation is what grown-up people do when things get tough. Whatever comes of Brexit, it needs to be with our dignity intact. I'm very much afraid that we have lost stature in the world during these past two years. Maybe that's good for a nation, not to think of itself more highly than it ought to think. But if it's respect that we've forfeited, shouldn't that make us think carefully about the course we've embarked on? I hope so.

5. Please, please, consider it possible that you may be mistaken about a People's Vote. I am no enthusiast for referenda in a representative democracy, but once that genie is let out of the bottle, you can't put it back again. I think the cry for a third referendum (not the second - that's what 2016 was) will become unassailable in the coming months. Please, please, consider letting the nation, especially its young who were disenfranchised in 2016, speak once more, with the option of remaining in the EU on the same terms as we currently enjoy. After all, if Brexit is really what the UK wants, then Brexiters have nothing to fear from going round the tracks in the light of what we have all learned in the last two years. Minds change, not because people are fickle or wayward, but because circumstances change and new evidence emerges. Previously unknown information, newly assessed risks, clearer perceptions of what Brexit would actually mean, all this comes from the intensive scrutiny Brexit has been subjected to in the last 27 months. Such a triage is a good thing. I'm sure you welcome it. I believe you have the courage to ask the nation in a People's Vote what it now believes about its future in the light of what it now knows. Don't be afraid.

6. It may be small comfort, but I want to assure you that the prayers of people of all faiths are with you. And the thoughts of many more.