Let Parliament beware: the British public, like the EU, has run out of patience
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The battle of Brexit will go down in history as a textbook example of political siege warfare: more a test of endurance than of anything more exalted. After Super Saturday proved to be yet another anti-climax, this week promises to be one of hard pounding in Westminster and mounting fury elsewhere.
Amid the smoke and mirrors, however, three salient facts are discernible. First, the longer that Parliament strings out the Brexit process, the less impressed is the public with its members’ democratic credentials. This makes it more likely that when an election comes, the nation will vote decisively for one side or the other. We may be on the eve of one of those periodic landslides, such as 1945, when a mass extinction of MPs is followed by an era of radical reform.
Secondly, despite the late (and still unconvincing) conversion of the Labour leadership to the cause of a second referendum, it is far from clear that the public wants one. Last week the largest opinion poll for three years, by ComRes for ITN, with a sample of 20,000, found that 62 per cent wanted Parliament to honour the result of the 2016 referendum, while just 38 per cent supported a second “confirmatory” one. The poll also suggested that such a second referendum would merely replicate the result of the first, but by a larger margin: 50 per cent supported Leave, 42 per cent Remain.
Nor is it clear how such a “people’s vote” would help decide on the new deal. Another poll, done since the new Withdrawal Agreement with the EU was announced, found that the public was evenly split between those who supported the deal and those who did not. As for those who prefer to leave with no deal: they would be irrelevant to the proposed plebiscite. The ballot paper proposed by Sir Keir Starmer and his fellow Opposition MPs would have only two options: the new deal or revocation of Article 50. Whatever the result, a large section of the public would inevitably feel excluded and angry.
Thirdly, even if the British political class is reluctant to move on, the rest of Europe (and the world) have already lost patience. Though the letter that Boris Johnson was obliged to send to Donald Tusk to comply with the Benn Act has been received and duly noted, the lack of enthusiasm for delay among the 27 partners is quite obvious. Now that an end is in sight, they cannot wait for the British to bring the whole business to an end. Dragging it out further, and even attempting to reopen a done deal for a second time, would be not only economically damaging, but fraught with political risk. Angela Merkel’s ominous remark last week about how the UK should, like the US and China, be seen as a competitor and rival, is a harbinger of the future. Britain has run right out of goodwill.
As they settle down to another week of mutual recrimination, therefore, MPs should behave a little less complacently than they appeared to many last Saturday. Speaker Bercow, who seems ever more arbitrary in his rulings, is determined to make the most of his final fortnight in office. But he, like the rest of his fellow parliamentarians, is living on borrowed time. Far away in the shires and boroughs of this long-suffering land, a storm is brewing that may soon sweep this Brexit Parliament away.
