Brexit is certainly a big deal. It’s also shaping up to be a miserable one. So the people have a right to decide whether they still want Brexit once they know what it means.
Quitting the EU will affect us for generations to come. It will impact jobs, the NHS, the environment, our ability to stand up to bullies across the world, our pride and even the unity of the United Kingdom.
A good deal would be good for our public services, prosperity, power and peace. But as new facts emerge, it is clear Brexit will fail on all counts.
We won’t get an extra £350m a week for the NHS, as Boris Johnson falsely promised. We’ll have less money for public services, because the economy will be damaged. Kicking out foreigners isn’t the way to get treated faster in A&E departments either. We’re already suffering an exodus of European nurses and doctors – meanwhile, fewer patients are getting treated on time in A&E departments.
Brexiters also promised that we would stride the world like latter-day Walter Raleighs, opening foreign markets to our trade. This is baloney. We’re scrambling to copy deals the EU already has with over 60 other countries. Not only are we going to lose access to the EU market, which accounts for half our trade, but when the US and China see our desperation, they’ll bully us – forcing us to open our markets to their chlorine-washed chicken, subsidised steel and the like.
The leave campaign’s slogan was “take back control”. This is a bad joke. As Theresa May makes one climbdown after another in the Brexit talks, it’s clear we are losing control. This is because we need the EU more than it needs us – exactly the opposite of what Johnson, Gove and co promised two years ago.
We are currently one of Europe’s big powers making the rules. But because the prime minister is desperate not to lose all the EU’s advantages, we’ll end up as a rule-taker. This tail-between-our-legs Brexit will be bad for our pride and bad for our power.
We’ll have less clout on the global stage too. At a time when Russia is flexing its muscles, is it really sensible to burn our bridges with Europe?
Brexit could even imperil the peace process in Northern Ireland. The fact that both the UK and the Republic of Ireland are in the EU has eased communal tensions between Protestants and Catholics. Unless we can stop border controls returning, they could flare again post-Brexit.
As if this was not bad enough, it has now emerged that the official leave campaign might have cheated by breaking spending limits during the referendum. Meanwhile, Facebook’s statement that data on 1.1 million Brits may have been “improperly shared” with Cambridge Analytica has set off alarm bells that this information may have been used to manipulate voters.
Brexiters will, no doubt, seek to trash the idea of a people’s vote by calling it a second referendum. It’s not. In 2016, voters had a choice between the reality of staying in the EU and the fantasy promised by the leave campaign. Once we know what the deal is, we will be able to compare two realities. That’s not undemocratic. It’s common sense.
Brexiters will, no doubt, say we are bad losers and should shut up. But in a free society, everybody has the right to speak their minds. It’s undemocratic to try to silence us. Others may say that people are so sick and tired of the whole goddamn business that they don’t want another vote. Many people do want to get it over and done with. Our task will be to persuade them this is such a big deal that they need to focus on it one more time.
The good news is that many voters realise the importance of this moment. They are suspicious of politicians deciding things that will affect them and their families for generations without having a say. And this is even before our campaign for a people’s vote has taken off.
Yet others may say the referendum was so divisive that the last thing we need is another vote. There’s no doubt Brexit has split families and communities. But if we quit the EU with a bad deal the people don’t want, that will be even more divisive.
After a people’s vote, in which the public get to compare two realities, the country may be able to heal itself – whatever the result. That would give closure to this whole sorry story.
• Hugo Dixon is chairman and editor-in-chief of InFacts, a founding member of the People’s Vote campaign
Theresa May next week faces a show of defiance from MPs fighting to keep the UK in a customs union with the EU after 10 select committee chairs tabled a motion aimed at forcing a vote on the issue
Three Conservatives – Bob Neill, Nicky Morgan and Sarah Wollaston – are among the signatories to the motion, which urges the government to “include as an objective in negotiations ... the establishment of an effective customs union”.
The government lost a vote in the House of Lords on Wednesday night by a hefty majority of 123 on a cross-party amendment that would force ministers to report to parliament on their moves to keep the UK in a customs union.
MPs campaigning against a hard Brexit, including Anna Soubry and Chuka Umunna, have tabled amendments to the trade bill and customs bill demanding that the option of a customs union be kept on the table.
But the government has delayed bringing the legislation back to the Commons, avoiding the risk of an embarrassing defeat, so the select committee chairs are using their power to raise issues in the Commons to force a vote.
Other signatories include Labour’s Hilary Benn and Yvette Cooper, the Liberal Democrats’ Norman Lamb, and the Scottish National party’s Angus MacNeil.
Supporters of a customs union hope the debate will underline the lack of support in parliament for taking the UK out of the customs union.
Soubry said: “You will get the mood of the House: that’s important. If Theresa May wanted to, she could change her mind on this.”
But Jacob Rees Mogg, chair of the pro-Brexit European Research Group of backbenchers, warned against the liaison committee - made up of the select committee chairs - politicising its role.
“It is unusual for the liaison committee to propose a motion and makes it more a political pressure group rather than the guardians of the rights of the House of Commons. In behaving this way, it regrettably devalues itself,” he said.
Those wanting to remain in a customs union – which would avoid border checks, but constrain the UK from striking its own trade deals – are concerned about the impact on the economy if the UK left.
The motion “notes the government’s expressed aim to provide the freest and most frictionless possible trade” with the EU and “further notes the importance of frictionless trade without tariffs, customs or border checks for manufacturers and businesses”.
Morgan, who chairs the Treasury select committee, and Cooper, who chairs the home affairs select committee, said: “With just six months to go before the Brexit deal needs to be concluded, we are running out of time for parliament to help to shape the negotiations.
“Yet many of our backbench committees have forensically gathered evidence on different Brexit options and the practical implications. That is why committee chairs at the liaison committee – including those who voted leave and who voted remain, supporters and opponents of a customs union – concluded that backbench MPs should get the chance of an early constructive debate and vote on this crucial issue, not bound by the party whips, but informed by committee evidence instead.
“If parliament stays silent until after the deal is done, that is just a recipe for conflict and regret later on. Far better for us to debate this properly now and let parliamentarians express their view before it is too late.”
The vote will be non binding but, after the defeat in the Lords on Wednesday, its proponents hope it will demonstrate there is no majority in the Commons for leaving the customs union, something May has insisted on since her Lancaster House speech last January.
The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, said: “This is further evidence of the growing chorus of cross-party voices concerned that Theresa May’s position on a customs union is wrong in principle.”
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