A rerun of the 2016 Brexit vote is a terrible idea, but we do need a Final Say referendum

We’ve become so used to labelling each other. Remain or Leave, Blairite or Corbynista, centrist or far left. As a result we’ve stopped listening to each other’s arguments.

So here I am – Seb Dance MEP, arch-Remainer – arguing for a public vote on Brexit. Quelle surprise! But please, if you have so far opposed a Final Say, do not stop reading here. I want to make the case for why a public vote is the only long-term, sustainable way through this crisis.

I recognise the term is synonymous in the minds of many with a second referendum. Too many people – perhaps even some of its proponents too – think it’s a way of revisiting the same question put in June 2016. But it emphatically cannot be. There are many ways in which the 2016 referendum did a disservice to our democracy, but chief among them must be the fact that the Leave proposition was a blank canvas, onto which all manner of promises and undeliverable fantasies were written.

The vote I’m advocating is very different from the June 2016 referendum. I am arguing for a vote on the two concrete, deliverable options now before us: to seek a cross-party consensus on an alternative deal based on membership of a customs union, or a public vote on the way forward, including an option to remain in the European Union.

There may well be moments in the near future to force a general election. And goodness knows we all want rid of the appalling Tory government that created this mess. But we must also recognise that time is slipping away. Labour cannot simply sit and watch the Tories implode. Whatever we now decide will determine what happens with Brexit.

In reality it is not a simple choice between seeking a cross-party consensus on a customs union-based approach and holding a public vote. They are not competing options, but one and the same. There is no way a compromise position could hold in the medium term, once we have emerged from the current crisis, unless that option is ratified by the voters.

Why do I think that? Let’s assume there is a consensus among MPs for a softer Brexit, based, as a minimum, on membership of a customs union. Or indeed to go further and include membership of the single market too in a Norway-plus relationship. Immediately a huge swathe of Leave voters would be opposed on the basis that we would not be able to sign the mythical trade deals they have been promised.

Even if we weren’t members of the single market, membership of a customs union alone would also require a huge degree of alignment with the single market, in order to guarantee harmonisation of standards and to prevent a race to the bottom (this is the “strong single market deal” we hear so much about).

Inevitably there will come a European directive that the UK will have to apply, but over which we will have no say and which will spark anger. That will morph into a “we voted for proper independence, not for this” campaign. The compromise position will at this point find few friends willing to defend it, creating a crisis all over again.

The only way to prevent this collapse in the consensus is to lock it in via the consent of voters in a public vote. The people would have been asked, and the people would have answered.

Those who wish to avoid another referendum and hope for a compromise to get us through this must avoid thinking a plan that gets a majority support in the House of Commons today will somehow survive intact further down the road. It won’t. A public vote is the only chance it would have of survival.

This need for a democratic mandate applies to every other iteration that could possibly emerge. May’s deal is so far from what was promised in June 2016 that it is impossible to say it has public consent. The same goes for so-called Canada-plus and a no-deal exit. None of them are anything like what was promised to voters in the referendum.

But let us be clear. No deal is another fantasy blank canvas, similar to June 2016. It allows a variety of outlandish promises and unachievable goals to be presented as a “clean Brexit”. We must be clear. A public vote now would present the actual, achievable options and ensure the winning option is sustainable in the long-term. No deal must not be on the ballot paper. All shades of the Labour family have been 100 per cent correct to rule out no deal.

There can be only one other major argument against a public vote: that we will face a backlash with cries of “betrayal”.

We must face the reality of the betrayal myth. The truth is it’s inevitable no matter what happens now.

If we exit without a deal, the economic damage it would cause will never be the fault of the reckless Brexiters, it would be blamed on “the immigrants” we did not “send home”. If we accept May’s deal, it will not be a “proper Brexit” because the elite “conspired to deny the British people of their true independence”, while the lost jobs and lower living standards it would bring would further fuel the frustrations of those who voted Leave in the first place.

If we have a cross-party compromise in the form of current Labour policy – although it would help mitigate some of the economic damage – it would be seen as another conspiracy by those who don’t “respect democracy”. A revocation of Article 50 would be cynically portrayed as a betrayal by the establishment that never wanted us to leave the EU in the first place.

Only a public vote that gives democratic consent for the way forward can lance those boils. With any possible outcome so far from the promises made two years ago, it is the only way to put solid foundations under our future path.

I implore everyone in the Labour Party to stop thinking about a public vote as a rerun of 2016. We are in this mess precisely because what Leave meant was not specified. Now we can specify it. Now we can define it. We must get democratic consent for the path we choose or not only will our economy be damaged, but our democracy too. It is Labour’s only credible option. If we support it, it will happen.

Seb Dance is a Labour MEP