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J More than a week ago, Checkers' statement made the following headlines: "Theresa May has reached an agreement with her firm – and no one has resigned" and " Theresa May wins an agreement for a new British Brexit offer. To be fair, the last title was followed by the line: "How long does it last is another matter." In the end, the answer to this question was less than 48 hours. A week later, the declaration and the white paper are largely ridiculed on both sides of the European debate, and it is now suggested that British political problems over Brexit can only be solved by a new referendum
. referendum can solve our Brexit problems is based largely on wishful thinking, as much of the debate in the EU. Suppose that the result we want to achieve is the one that enjoys the support of a comfortable majority in the country and deputies, based on a single set of verifiable facts accepted by most, and whose benefits and the disadvantages are reasonably well understood. Why would a second referendum in two years have to do so when the first failed?
When I was working for the British government on the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the British Trade Minister, Lord Livingston, liked using the quote, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts, "usually attributed to the American politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In the Brexit debate, all parties have their own facts. On the Brexit side, the economist Patrick Minford projects a 7% economic gain in the UK over 15 years from a scenario without a deal; you can solve the Irish border issue quite simply with the technology, and the money we do not send the EU will be a Brexit dividend spent on the NHS. Needless to say, activists against a hard Brexit reject all these facts, suggesting for example that the economy has already lost 2% potential growth.
It is difficult to see how a referendum on your favorite facts solves something. Especially when so many media reports will be partisan, or will try to balance the story by relating both sets of facts as they were also true. Third party interventions will not be useful either. Companies warning of new barriers to trade with the EU have generally been seen as supportive of the campaign for a sweet Brexit or to stay. It is quite astonishing that we can now hear a Conservative MP (Iain Duncan Smith) say, "When big companies intervene politically … they have, with astonishing consistency, been wrong," and do not find that surprising.
Inadvertently, they agreed on the biggest and most heartwarming myth: the UK is of equal importance to the EU in the negotiations. Thus, the government's white paper suggests that the EU and the UK will create a new "Common Regulation" while the EU already has one in the European Economic Area. At the same time, the Labor Party is proposing that the United Kingdom remain in a customs union with the EU, but in which we have our say on how the EU negotiates trade agreements. It's the British exception at its best or worse, and rightly seen as such in the EU.
Another referendum can not solve these deep problems that have become significantly worse since June 2016. Probably the biggest missed opportunity is the reasonable inter-party consensus you need in a major international negotiation when you take office. . But in one way or another, this leadership and consensus is always what we need. The first step in the process would be honesty, to say that we can not have everything we want, that the EU is a bigger player. Then we need to discuss the real tradeoffs in terms of political control, economic consequences, Ireland and related issues such as freedom of movement. In the end, the options will be based on keeping in the EU, leaving unsecured future economic partnerships and a likely frontier in Ireland, or a transition house based on membership in the EU. EEE, with an opportunity to negotiate specific elements in the UK. Talking about a referendum is simply a distraction from this uncomfortable debate that we avoid.
• David Henig is Director of the United Kingdom's Trade Policy Project at the European Center for the International Political Economy
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