Under the banner headline "A second Brexit poll looks ever more likely", Rachel Sylvester writes in the Times today that "momentum is slowly but surely gathering behind the idea of giving the people the chance to approve or reject the prime minister's (Brexit) deal". To be fair, Ms Sylvester does not actually articulate the suggestion that this 2nd referendum might offer the electorate the opportunity to Remain instead, but she quotes many (including that strange individual Lord Adonis, who many regard as influential despite his never having been elected for public office) who undoubtedly do. Her piece is, a very little thought reveals, a vacuous piece of journalism.
Firstly, it would be politically impossible for any government to say to the people, "We don't know what a final deal would look like, but we're pretty sure it's going to be a bad one so we'd like you to decide whether to press on to that bad deal or ask the EU to allow us to withdraw the Article 50 notification and stay in after all".
In other words no 2nd referendum would be possible until we know what a final deal will look like.
Secondly, it is impossible to say at this stage when we'll know what the final draft deal will be. The negotiation timetable suggests that at the earliest it might be in the autumn, but experienced heads suggests it is likely to take many months, and perhaps even years to thrash out.
Alert readers will have noticed that amidst this open-ended stretch of time there is one fixed date. It is the end of March 2019, just over a year away, at which point Britain will be out of the European Union. We know that date because the clock started running when we issued the Article 50 notification (with the overwhelming endorsement of Parliament). At that point it will be impossible to hold another referendum to do anything other than decide between a draft deal and Brexit on WTO terms, because by that time we will have already left.
I guess it's true that after next March a pro-EU government could invite voters to choose between a) accepting the deal on offer or b) asking the EU to rejoin. The difficulty with that scenario is that, upon a request to rejoin, the EU would undoubtedly play hardball, refusing to continue with Britain's budget rebate and demanding that we adopt the Euro. Even the most passionate Remainer would concede I think that such demands would require a 3rd Referendum, one which Remain would be unlikely to win. Which would leave Britain where?
Ms Sylvester is an arch-Remainer (married to a Guardian journalist, no less) and she is entitled to her fantasy. The five stages of grief are said to be denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I would say Sylvester is at the bargaining stage. When Remainers wake up to the fact that the clock is against them, it's not going to be pretty. I predict a return to anger.
