If nothing else, yesterdays defeat of the government's deal shows it is never going to make it through the House. And the problem is one which has been obvious from the start. There is no half-way house between EU membership and being an independent state. Theresa May has now tested that policy to destruction. She thought there was a central position that would reconcile the two sides of the Conservative party and at the same time be acceptable to the EU. She has failed.
There never was a 'goldilocks' status available where you can enjoy most of the benefits of membership without most of the obligations. This was always the fantasy that the Vote Leave campaign pursued. Getting a consensus between europhiles and europhobes has proved impossible although the PM has spent eighteen months trying to prove otherwise. We are either IN (or so close as to look as if we are) or OUT and totally independent with colossal economic damage in the short term and a slow decline in the long term. I blogged about this last August (HERE).
There never was a 'goldilocks' status available where you can enjoy most of the benefits of membership without most of the obligations. This was always the fantasy that the Vote Leave campaign pursued. Getting a consensus between europhiles and europhobes has proved impossible although the PM has spent eighteen months trying to prove otherwise. We are either IN (or so close as to look as if we are) or OUT and totally independent with colossal economic damage in the short term and a slow decline in the long term. I blogged about this last August (HERE).
And it was notable yesterday that many MPs said they would not vote to make constituents poorer and we know that every Brexit scenario short of full membership will do just that. Dominic Grieve has said he is not prepared to vote for any such deal without a second referendum and, in my opinion, neither should any other MP. It is not a decision they can or should make.
A People's Vote is the ONLY solution to determine which of the two utterly irreconcilable extreme positions is to become a policy objective. Sooner or later they will have to do it.
