A week after the date the UK was supposed to leave the EU, it's becoming clearer and clearer that the way Brexit has been handled by the Government and Parliament is a mess. Many, and I’d guess most, of those who voted remain will feel that the “Brexitshambles”- now a popular hashtag on Twitter - was always inevitable. Maybe it was always going to be a terrible process, but it also seems clear that there are many things that could have been done to the lessen the current crisis. Four things stand out:
Delay triggering Article 50
It's clear now, as it has been for a long time, that the two years provided by the Article 50 process have not provided enough time for us to have a proper debate about what the relationship between Britain and EU could, and should, be. It's true the Government wasted far too much time - first in calling the 2017 General Election and then in trying to agree what the Cabinet wanted. But this only demonstrates that more thought and debate should have been allowed before the clock was started. A delay would also have allowed the Civil Service to start to prepare - something which Cameron stopped them from doing proir to the referendum. More importantly, a delay could have allowed time for more substantive measures that might have helped avoid our current deadlock.
A Brexit Commission
One of these measures could have been a 'Royal Commission' on Brexit. The big problem with the Leave campaign, and the referendum in general, was that people knew what they were voting against, but were given very little clarity of what they were voting for. With that in mind, after the referendum the Government should have recognised that the options had not been sufficiently examined. To do so, an independent commission should have been set up to examine the challenges and opportunities of Brexit and to set out what the options were in an unbiased way. This would have of course been a massive challenge for whoever chaired the commission, but the model has been used to tackle thorny issues numerous times. Such a commission could have spoken to both sides of the debate - not only Remain and Leave politicians, but also to people in the different parts of the country with varying backgrounds and opinions, to understand their views and concerns. This would not have made the hard political choices go away, but it would have helped all sides gain clarity on the options going into the Article 50 process.
Eliminate a ‘disorderly’ no deal from the start
The other thing we could have done before triggering Article 50 is take the nightmare scenario off the table. No deal cannot be avoided without a full withdrawal agreement, but a lot of the more horrific outcomes can be addressed by contingency measures agreed with the EU. Planes could be mutally granted permission to fly, each side can choose not to impose checks on food to avoid gridlock at ports, and so on. The Government should have asked the EU to agree these mitigation measures prior to the Article 50 process to safeguard each side from the uncertainly of a failed negotiation. It is true the EU might have been reluctant do do this, given their position was not to negotiate before Article 50 was triggered and they will have wanted to leverage the fact that the UK has more to lose. However, negotiating a contingency plan is not the same as negotiating a withdrawal agreement or future relationship. If the EU did refuse, they would have had to be willing to take the blame for any disorderly no deal and the added economic uncertainty people and businesses are now experiencing. We should at least have tried.
Build parliamentary consensus early
It has taken until after the 11th hour for meaningful talks between the two major parties to start. Clearly this should have been done much much earlier. The right point was probably after the 2017 General Election when it became clear that no party had a clear mandate on Brexit. Perhaps some important common ground could have been found. For example, a plan to pass a withdrawal agreement, perhaps with an election date agreed during the transition period. The would have allowed each side to campaign for their version of a post-Brexit Britain. If not in 2017, we certainly should have had meaningful cross-party talks after the first defeat of May’s deal in December.
Perhaps much of the above is somewhat wishful thinking in this febrile political climate, but it does serve to illustrate that we should not let politicians off the hook for what has been a disastrous process.