Will no one rid us of this turbulent mandate?

Today, 3 options face the UK. Which path the country chooses could have serious consequences for the decades to come. These options are all related to Brexit and have come into sharp relief now that Theresa May has returned with her draft deal. The options are as follows: leave the EU on the terms of May’s deal, leave the EU without any deal or not leave the EU at all.

Given the widespread opposition to the terms of May’s deal – an agreement perfectly blended to be too far from the rest of Europe for Remainers and yet too close for Brexiteers – attention has shifted to the other two options. For many, the 3 options the UK faces have already been reduced to a binary showdown that would either involve the most extreme form of Brexit possible or the entire project being abandoned.

It is in the context of this fierce debate that the issue of the referendum mandate is raised again and again. Many proponents of the No Deal scenario argue that if you oppose May’s deal, then No Deal is the only legitimate course of action because it is the only remaining option that fulfils the mandate of the 2016 EU Referendum. A No Brexit future would, we are told, deeply damage faith in democracy and fatally erode trust between the general public and their representatives. People, it is argued, could no longer have faith that if they voted for something then it would be delivered.

Yet this argument is flawed, and it is important to explain why. The No Deal position relies on a particular, not universal, interpretation of the referendum mandate. From this perspective, any Brexit that sees the UK leave the EU’s “headline” institutions (such as the Single Market and Customs Union) is seen as fulfilling the referendum mandate. This is a very wide interpretation of what the public voted for and is almost certainly excessive.

In 2016, people did not only vote to leave the EU, they did not deliver a blank cheque to the government to leave under whatever conditions they may prefer, they voted for a series of promises made by the Leave campaign. Leave assured voters that there would be no disruption from Brexit and the UK would remain part of a Europe-wide free trade area, all wrapped up by 2020. A No Deal Brexit would not deliver this. The Leave campaign promised that there would be no hard border in Northern Ireland. A No Deal Brexit would not deliver this. Leave guaranteed more money for everyone, both for taxpayers in general and through funding for specific groups such as the NHS or farmers. A No Deal Brexit would not deliver this. Leave even said that Brexit could strengthen the union with Scotland. A No Deal Brexit would certainly not deliver this.

The reality then is that a No Deal Brexit would no more be a fulfilment of the referendum mandate than No Brexit. Contrary to the arguments of its defenders, it does not hold a special legitimacy simply by virtue of being some form of Brexit because the original 2016 mandate was not for any Brexit at any cost. The mandate delivered by the referendum was for a specific, cost-free, benefit-heavy form of Brexit that a No Deal scenario simply could not deliver.

Brexiteers have occasionally tried to push the argument that the Leave campaign was not a government manifesto and that its promises are not binding anyway. Following this logic, if some of the promises of the Leave campaign can be so easily dropped, why not all of them? Try arguing that maintaining EU Freedom of Movement would be in line with the referendum mandate and see how far that logic gets you.

When pressed, some Brexiteers do abandon the referendum mandate and simply default to the promises of the 2017 Tory manifesto. However, we have known for decades that governing parties can and do drop promises from their manifestos and at times the documents can appear to be little more than guidelines. Ultimately, it is not because of manifesto mandates being shifted or dropped that Brexiteers declare UK democracy could suffer irreversible harm, but specifically the referendum mandate.

This is not to defend May’s deal as being the incarnation of the “will of the people” that was delivered to us in June 2016. It suffers its own problems and it would be perverse to suggest that a manifestly unpopular deal could be the fulfilment of people’s wishes.

Rather the 2016 referendum has increasingly caused problems in the UK simply because it is not deliverable. The promises that were made by the winning campaign do not correspond to reality and reality has thus far proved unwilling to accommodate even the most impassioned of Brexit campaigners. Rather than going round in circles about which of the 3 options – May’s deal, No Deal or No Brexit – truly represents the desire of 52% of the voting public in a one-off vote two and a half years ago, we have to accept that there is no future before us that will fulfil the mandate.

What then to do? As I suggest in the title, UK politics has been burdened with a mandate that cannot be faithfully expunged. How do we deal with this lingering mandate?

Perhaps, rather than being a single course of action in and of itself, the only way for the country to move on would be to have some honesty. At its best, we could hope that a general mea culpa from Britain’s political class could suffice to allow the public to trust MPs to decide on the next course of action.

This, however, seems unlikely given the events of the last couple years. Instead, a realistic appraisal of what the potential costs and benefits are of the different options, based on Brexit outcomes where the terms are known and quantifiable, followed by a new referendum, seems to be the only way to ‘fulfil’ and finally be rid of the 2016 EU Referendum mandate. The alternative of ploughing ahead with the lies and fantasies of 2016, whether towards Brexit or not, would be truly toxic for the future of democracy in the UK.

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