Boris Johnson’s seat-of-the-pants deal is a damaging hard Brexit that demands the people are given a Final Say

There is a jokey one-liner circulating around social media following John McDonnell’s recent statement to GQ magazine that he and Jeremy Corbyn will step down if Labour lose the next election: “Another reason not to vote Labour.”

It has more truth in it than Labour might like to admit, languishing as they are 10 points behind the Conservatives. Many would vote Labour if they quit before losing.

The leader himself, on Sky television yesterday, was rather less willing to write his own obituary, preferring instead the time-honoured line that he was not going to lose the next election anyway. The more pertinent point is that he would pushing 80 by the time he had completed another term in opposition and fought and won the general election of, say, 2024, and was completing his own term in No 10.

The last person to manage such a feat of life endurance was Winston Churchill in the 1950s, and it wasn’t a great success then.

Mr Corbyn will certainly be around to respond to the Queen’s Speech today and lead his party into an imminent general election, even if he and his party are not quite ready for either.

In particular they are not clear on whether they would be prepared to back a second referendum on the latest hard Brexit deal (assuming it will soon be concluded), either on the simple democratic merits of giving people a Final Say on the actual deal before them, or as a condition on passing a deal in order to prevent a no-deal Brexit befalling the nation, as the government continues to threaten. Mixed messages still emanate from the shadow cabinet and parliamentary party.

Also doing the rounds of the news studios, Nicola Sturgeon and Jo Swinson were happy to endorse such a plan, ie pass a Johnson deal conditional on a referendum, with varying degrees of enthusiasm about seeing Mr Corbyn installed as an interim premier. But, of course, Labour and Mr Corbyn see things differently. As ever, the opposition parties, along with the other smaller groups in the Commons, agree on what they do not want but find it frustratingly impossible to define their own aims and plan.

Not that Boris Johnson’s task is much easier. The axiomatic truth has long been that any Brexit deal acceptable to the European Union is unacceptable to the House of Commons, and vice versa. It is possible that this time around the effort to square the circle will succeed because it is a more ingenious version of a workable solution that Theresa May and Olly Robbins came up with last year.

The revised technical customs partnership agreement at the centre of the Boris Johnson-Leo Varadkar accord might be sufficient to keep to the strict legal letter of Brexit, and maintain the formal integrity of the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but in reality the province would abide by many EU procedures, albeit with a democratic mechanism of approval. The EU rejected a UK version of this last year but now wants to try to make it work.

There are other factors working in the prime minister’s favour. Some across party lines will vote for his deal simply because of the sheer pressure of exhaustion and time, and the fear of worse – no deal. Mr Johnson has also barefacedly bought off and split the hard Brexiteers within his own party, the European Research Group.

Are Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel going to quit the government and give up agreeable jobs just because some HMRC officials at Belfast airport are going to have to administer tariffs on imports on the EU’s behalf? It seems unlikely.

“Compromises are inevitable,” says Mr Rees-Mogg, the double-breasted high priest of Brexit, who conceded he may have to eat his own words about loyalty to Ulster. Translation: “I rather like being leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council, thanks very much.”

The so-called Tory Spartans might stand by the DUP, but that might not be enough to defeat the Johnson plan. Nigel Farage would fulminate but, with Brexit done, he would soon be out of business.

Yet there are doubts, given the sorry history of the May plans, and the only sure way for the government to get its deal through the Commons and “get Brexit gone” is to legislate for a fair confirmatory referendum on the Johnson deal – winning many opposition party votes over, including Labour ones.

It is a democratic imperative, the people’s right to approve the terms of Brexit, and the only way to break the stalemate. It seems wrong for the country to be carried out of the EU on a Commons majority of one, or kept in for that matter.

Most importantly, whatever happens over the next week, the public needs to understand that the innocuous-sounding UK-EU free trade deal Mr Johnson is after is in fact hard Brexit, and not the softer versions discussed in the 2016 referendum. It eliminates tariffs and quotas, but that is about it. The deal would impose a huge bureaucratic burden and economic cost because goods and services will not be automatically traded into the EU, if they do not conform to various regulations about “rules of origin”, health and safety, recognition of professional qualifications and much more.

Free trade is in no way comparable to membership of a customs union and single market. We will not have free access to EU markets. There will be delays and friction and red tape. It places Britain at a severe competitive disadvantage.

As HM Treasury and many others have pointed out, this will cost British families thousands of pounds a year and would hit the northeast of England and Northern Ireland especially badly. The car industry, agriculture, the City, pharmaceuticals and food and drink industries would all be hard hit. It would not be business as usual.

The British people may still think such economic damage is exaggerated or that the price is still worth paying for control, however nominal, of borders, money, courts and immigration – but the British electorate deserve a Final Say on what many of them certainly never voted or wished for in 2016, or desire now. A Final Say is the fairest way to settle this, deal or no deal.