It is now more than two years from the referendum and in my opinion we are even more polarised than ever. Brexit has put us in a near impossible position. Politicians here still can't agree what Brexit means and the EU cannot offer us what we've asked for so far, and what we're asking for has no consensus behind it anyway. It's a total mess. To make matters worse, both sides are gearing up for a rematch. We remainers are working on a people's vote while Farage announces he is re-entering the fray (HERE) and Leave means Leave are preparing a nationwide tour to force a clean Brexit.
We can't reach a deal to leave, we can't remain and we certainly can't stay where we are. It's a total mess.
Richard North of the EU referendum blog - a very clever, if astonishingly arrogant man who wants us to go for the EEA option - also despairs, but is equally dismissive of both sides, calling both of us fantasists. Yet he is the biggest fantasist of all, if only he could see it.
A year ago Professor Vernon Bogdanor, the constitutional expert and head of Gresham Colleger gave a speech at the Museum of London. You can read it HERE. It's quite long but well worth a read. In it he forecast a lot of things, including the deadlock in the House of Commons.
The essence of his speech was that there is no such thing as a soft Brexit, no halfway house between membership and isolation, which is what the government is seeking as a way of uniting leavers and remainers. It is either a hard Brexit or Remain. Richard North has always argued for the EEA option, which he thinks of as this mediated settlement, but even this for him is only a stepping stone to greater separation, albeit over quite a few more years.
As I have blogged before, relationships with the EU are like bi-stable devices, they can only exist in one of two states, you can either be inside (The Remain option) or so close as to be almost inside, like Switzerland and Norway, or quite separate like Canada or Australia (The Leave option). But the government is desperately trying to bridge the two, to find a long term stable position that can satisfy both sides and the EU. This simply does not exist as Bogdanor points out. It is a fantasy.
Lord Kerslake, the ex-head of the civil service recognises all this and has entered the fray and suggested parliament would have to consider whether they could allow Brexit to continue. This seems to be the thinking of a rational man, which is presumably why Tice objects to it (HERE)
The only options are to leave, have a clean Brexit and do serious damage to our own economy and influence, or to remain a member. Cameron called the referendum to settle the European question for a generation or two, perhaps for ever, and I think it will - eventually, but it will take a few more years for this to happen. The old referendum cannot politically be overturned without another one. This is clear, so we will eventually have to be another vote.
But next time it will have to put the truth before the public. This might be by some Royal Commission to set out a genuine set of "facts" that both sides can accept and with a single, clear objective that is also agreed with the EU. This may be before the final "deal" or at some other future time perhaps in a way organised by parliament. By that time a lot of "facts" may well have emerged anyway. If a few big companies announce plans to leave with big job losses for example.
The tide is already turning in our favour in my opinion. Already a large majority thinks Brexit is being badly handled and will not lead to the promised prosperity. When the real facts are placed before the electorate, as more and more people realise the consequences of a clean or hard Brexit, I am sure the Remain option will become the settled will of the country.
