The Brexitometer

Throughout the dismal tale of Brexit, I’ve kept some kind of Brexitometer lodged in a corner of my head to rate the chances that the whole tangle could somehow be unwound and we simply remain, likely through the holding of a new referendum with an explicit option to stay as an EU member. At first this seemed impossible, then maybe 90:10 against, with the chances say narrowing to 70:30 over the last year — not beyond the realms of the imagination but still unlikely. Now, after the rapid developments of the last week (the Salzburg impasse, the changing tone in Labour) I would say we are now suddenly at 50:50 that there could be a second referendum. Which could seem a kind of salvation. Crudely put, Brexit is a choice between scaling down close economic ties with neighbours who are two hours away by train (aka the ‘hard’ Brexit or in the case of some kind of trade deal the ‘Canada’ option) or staying sufficiently close and beholden to EU rules, without having a say in how they develop, (aka the ‘soft’ Brexit or ‘Norway’ option) that it utterly defeats the object of leaving in the first place. The chilling truth is the four most senior figures in the UK government that is negotiating our exit actually voted to remain (PM, foreign secretary, home secretary, chancellor), raising the uncomfortable prospect that deep down they actually believe the whole idea is wrong and are merely engaged in damage limitation.

Whether we, as a nation, would want to endure the bitterness and polarisation that a second referendum would bring its another issue. It’s extraordinary that this crisis in policy and identity comes just six years after the UK presented a confident, modern face to the world in the London Olympics and as surprise tears welled in my eyes as I watched the wonderful opening ceremony on TV in my Moscow living room, I could think we had risen to the challenge of building a diverse, multicultural nation (still far, far from perfect…) better than many of our near neighbours. In many places, this mess would be an open goal for the creation of a new political formation. However in the UK the system, the lack of obvious personalities and the long memory of the ultimately doomed “gang of four” Labour breakout in the 1980s may preclude this. Yet the situation has reached such an unexpected peak of drama that any kind of realignment could be possible.