Britain is teetering on a
knife’s edge: about to crash out of, or back into, the European Union. Either
outcome would represent a defeat for democracy in the UK and in the EU.
Crashing out would inflict substantial economic hardship on the weakest in
Britain. It would boost jingoism and parochialism, drive England further apart
from Scotland and Ireland, and expose the UK to the vagaries of a Trump administration
eager to divide Europe and to liberate US corporations operating on British
soil from all social and environmental constraints.
Crashing back into the EU (for
instance, via the revocation of Article 50) would undermine trust in democracy
among many in Britain, while on the continent it would strengthen the hold of
the EU’s staunchly anti-democratic ruling technocracy. An unintended
consequence would be the reinforcement of Europe’s xenophobic “nationalist
international”, whose power is proportional to the EU establishment’s capacity
to continue business as usual
If Brexit has an upside, it is
that it has revealed the need for a “People’s Debate”, not only regarding the
UK-EU relationship, but also the festering wounds that the British establishment
has kept out of sight: the disenfranchisement of rural England, an archaic
electoral system, the UK’s ailing economic model, and the Irish and Scottish
questions. Crashing out of, or back into, the EU would negate this opportunity
by thwarting such a People’s Debate.
Remainers are right to disdain
Brexit. In 2016, while representing the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025
(DiEM25) in the run-up to the referendum, I stood side-by-side with Caroline
Lucas, John McDonnell and others in a joint campaign for radical Remain. In
DiEM25’s language, the message was: “In the EU. Against this EU!” The
main reason Brexit won was that the Remain campaign was dominated by the
Cameron-Clegg-Osborne-Blair roadshow, fronting for the institutions of global
financial capital, for whom an anti-democratic EU was perfectly serviceable and
consistent with their capacity to rule on behalf of the privileged few.
Arrogance and inanity combined with Project Fear to drown out voices for a
radical Remain.
An elderly lady in Leeds
put it succinctly to me at one of the meetings I addressed: “I agree that
staying in the EU to fight for democracy would be best. But, my dear boy, you
are not in 10 Downing Street, and neither is Jeremy. Cameron is. A victory for
Remain is a victory for him and his mates.”
While I would relish having
access to a time machine in order to fight Brexit more effectively, if I had a
magic wand by which to annul Brexit now, I would not use it. For what would I
tell the lady in Leeds? She fully understood the costs of Brexit. She was not
duped by Cambridge Analytica or Facebook. Her vote was intended to strike a
blow at the establishment that did all it could to take the demos out of
British and European democracy. By annulling her choice today, in order to
avoid Britain crashing out of the EU, I would be betraying her in a way I could
not justify.
Proponents of a second vote
ask: why is giving her a chance to reconsider, having factored in new
information, an act of betrayal? The first referendum was agreed to by both
sides with plenty of time for debate. Yet a second referendum would have to take
place without the consent of half the country and with a countdown clock
ticking ominously in the background. Moreover, a parliament unable to agree on
Brexit will, equally, never agree on any plausible wording of the referendum
question, or on a voting mechanism for selecting between more than two options.
Might securing EU agreement
for a long extension to Article 50 (which expires on 29 March 2019) create the
space for the comprehensive People’s Debate that Britain needs? Not really. Any
extension beyond June means that the UK must participate in the May 2019
European Parliament elections – for even if Brussels and London agree that the
UK should not, British citizens will almost certainly win in the European
courts if they sue for their right to vote. DiEM25 would be delighted to
include the UK in its pan-European electoral campaign. But I cannot countenance
looking the lady in Leeds in the eyes and telling her that, despite the Leave
result in 2016, she must now vote in the European Parliament elections.
Moreover, any agreed extension
would shift the deadline without removing the deadline effect. Theresa May will
use the additional time to continue peddling her hopeless deal, run down the
clock anew, and blockade herself in No 10 until an exhausted public is yet
again faced with another 11th-hour crisis. A delayed deadline will extend the
standstill and the Prime Minister’s tenure, rather than enable compromise.
The lady in Leeds, I must
confess, has had a major impact on my thinking: if we want Britain to stay in
the EU but to fight against the European establishment, and if we want a
People’s Debate, we should not want the revocation or extension of Article 50, or
a second referendum. What we should want is a progressive in Downing Street.
Given our current predicament, there is only one way to speedily get May out
and Corbyn in: let the clock run down.
On 29 March, the European
Commission will undoubtedly use its emergency powers to stop the clock
indefinitely, not merely to extend the deadline. A general election then
becomes inevitable, giving the people an opportunity to vote for a government
that can allow them the great debate that they deserve regarding the UK’s
long-term relationship with Europe and with itself.
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