Vote again

On March 30, 2019 -- just eight months from now -- the British will wake up to find themselves outside the European Union.  Many consequences will flow from Brexit, but the most dramatic result for the British people will be the end to the free flow of goods and people between the United Kingdom and its most important market, the European Union.

One would suppose that Britain must be in crisis mode in preparation for this critical change in its position in the world community.  One would be mistaken, at least judging from what has been accomplished to date.

This week's New Yorker magazine contains a lengthy discussion of the problem, together with a study of the personality and political skills of the prime minister, Theresa May.  Ms. May has been dealt a logically impossible hand.  She has not played it particularly skillfully, but maybe no one could.

The article discusses the dramatic split and competing rivalries within the Conservative Party, which is perhaps the most serious obstacle to working out any satisfactory agreement with the EU.  Ms. May, after a disastrous election last spring, now heads a coalition government supported by an extreme right wing, pro-Brexit party.  Her own ministers disagree publicly with any proposal that she floats.  Some have resigned from the government. 

Britain's approach, throughout history, to whatever problems it confronts has been to "muddle through."  Muddling through appears to be the Conservative government's present approach.  Its ministers seem to assume that at some point British and European negotiators will sit down, be reasonable, and work out something that essentially allows Britain to have most of the advantages of EU membership but none of the responsibilities.

That sort of muddling through probably won't work.

The New Yorker article points out the different political philosophies between Britain and the Continent.

The Lisbon Treaty, which serves as the E.U.'s constitution, is two hundred and seventy-one pages long; the U.K. has no such thing.  In Westminster, no situation is completely unfixable; the rules can be made to bend.  … But, since the vote in 2016, the E.U. has maintained that Britain can choose only from a menu of trading relationships that already exist.

The EU's position is not based on stubbornness or animus toward Britain, but on its approach to solving problems.   An EU official explained to May:

I said, You have a problem, you try to solve it.  We on the Continent are different.  We need first a concept.  If we have a concept, then we are going to try and put every problem that we have inside that concept.

Just when things seemed as though they couldn't get worse, Trump blew into town full of swagger, blustering and insulting and giving the British unwanted advice.  Boris Johnson, May's foreign secretary (until he walked out) and a fanatical Brexit proponent was, not surprisingly, delighted by Trump.  If only Trump were prime minister, he fantasized.

He'd go in bloody hard. … There'd be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos.  Everything would think he'd gone mad.  But, actually, you might get somewhere.

High praise for Mr. Trump, whose bluster hasn't got him much of anywhere at home.

As the discussion in the New Yorker makes clear, as if it weren't clear already, Ms. May's problems are virtually unsolvable.  Over the years since Britain joined the EU, its laws and regulations have been inextricably bound into those of the EU, and its economy has come to depend on the free flow of goods and services that EU membership permits.  None of the special relationships that the EU has developed with non-members -- Norway, Switzerland, Turkey -- permit those countries to enjoy advantages of membership without accepting duties, such as free movement between nations. 

The Ireland dilemma -- how to maintain a customs-free border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, a situation on which the tenuous peace between factions in Northern Ireland depends -- in itself makes withdrawal from the EU a potential (and probable) disaster.

My non-British opinion is that May should gather whatever support she can from her own party as well as from the opposition parties, and force through a replay of the 2016 referendum.  Referendums in the UK are not part of the normal legislative process as they are in many states in America.  Parliament is the ultimate decision maker, and the ultimate judge as to what is or is not "constitutional."  Forcing a second election would cost Ms. May her political career, but her career appears doomed in any event.  The New Yorker article suggests, in fact, that she does not now and never has enjoyed the office of prime minister.

She should remind Parliament and the British people that they voted in 2016 on the basis of assurances from Brexit advocates that the withdrawal from the EU would be smooth and would be of economic benefit to the British people.  It will not be smooth, and every economic projection indicates that the nation will be in economic turmoil for the foreseeable future.  Britain cannot rely on any sympathy or willingness to bend the rules from its present fellow members in the EU.

Texas also has its own culture and sense of identity, apart from being an American state.  It has a strong local economy.  But no one is seriously urging Texas to extricate itself from the American union.  Britain -- or England, really, since the other regions were opposed to Brexit -- can continue to maintain its cultural identity within the EU.

If the public, in a second referendum, votes again to exit the EU, so be it.  The nation will descend into chaos fully understanding the consequences and expressing a willingness to live with them.