No-deal Brexit might be bad, but remaining in the EU would be worse - Washington Examiner

As the Brexit clock ticks closer to midnight, the chances of a deal getting through the British Parliament are growing slimmer, raising the possibility of a “no deal” Brexit — something many view as a potential catastrophe. In January, United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May’s tentative agreement with the European Union was defeated by 230 votes in the House of Commons, a historic margin that made it the largest defeat of a government-backed bill in modern British history. Unless something changes, Britain will leave the EU on March 29. Yet, if Parliament doesn’t pass a deal, Britain will still leave. But it’ll do so without any agreement with the EU because of the rules laid out in the European Union Withdrawal Bill.

The spectacular failure of May’s deal means this option is looking more and more likely. But, while a no-deal Brexit and the disruption it would cause is unappealing and not trivial, it could be mitigated and overcome. Failure to leave the EU, however, would be disastrous for the U.K. in the long run.

The fantasy of much of the British political establishment is to have another vote — or otherwise cancel Brexit. But this must remain a fantasy. The hope for a second vote comes overwhelmingly from remainers, under the assumption that a new referendum would overturn the 2016 vote and allow mortified remainers to pretend it never happened.

This is delusional.

The logic undergirding this exercise in imagination assumes that people were misled into voting to leave in 2016, and that this could be avoided in a second vote. But if you think the last campaign was divisive and nasty, a second referendum would make the 2016 vote look like a transcendental meditation retreat by comparison. The vote to leave was driven by the same forces of alienation and discontent that have driven populists across the world in recent years. Fear mongering took place in both the leave and the remain campaigns in 2016, and there’s no reason to think this would change during a second vote.

Overturning the 2016 vote would only make this worse, and it’s easy to envision a scenario in which a second leave campaign capitalizes on this “betrayal” to win again, and, in the process, undermines confidence in the entire British political order.

Beyond that, the bad faith with which the EU has engaged in negotiations also strengthens the leave argument, showing precisely why Britain is better off out than it is in. There are also signs that the British public is growing increasingly angry with the intransigence of Brussels, and that there is no real appetite for any delay or reversal of Brexit. Even if there were to be a second vote in favor of remaining, what makes that vote decisive? If there’s a second referendum, why not a third, or fourth?

No matter the outcome of a new vote, the result would be a nastier, more polarized political climate in which a large segment of the population sees the entire political establishment as their enemy. After all, while the grassroots of the Tory party is overwhelmingly pro-Brexit, the majority of the party caucus in 2016 backed remain. Europe has for a long time been a contentious topic within the Tory party, but failure to deliver Brexit may well result in a split that destroys the Tories. Yet on this issue, Labour is also bitterly divided. So if Brexit doesn’t happen, the entire British party system may be upended, with a total political realignment on which Brexit becomes, and remains, the key dividing political issue. That’s not a good outcome for anyone.

Britain needs to move on. Brexit has suffocated discussion about all other serious issues, completely engulfed Parliament, and driven the entire British political system to paralysis. Brexit must happen so that the country can finally return to some sense of normalcy. Preventing Brexit would make this impossible and could create an even more polarized political climate.

It isn’t worth destabilizing the entire British political system, creating a void that dangerous and even nastier populist voices could fill, just to keep Britain in the EU. Brexit would dominate the entire political climate — not just for a few years as it has already done, but potentially for decades, as a new political system emerges in which Brexit becomes the key faultline.

If you’re exhausted by Brexit now, imagine if we’re still talking about it in a decade.

Prime Minister Theresa May herself has previously said that “no deal is better than a bad deal,” and while her government deserves blame for not beginning preparations for “no deal” until far too late, she was right to say so. The disruption caused by no deal could be overcome, but the damage of no Brexit would be far more damaging and needs to be avoided at all costs.

Benjamin Woodfinden (@BenWoodfinden) is a Young Voices contributor. He is a doctoral student in political science at McGill University in Montreal.

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