Publication date – 3rd February 2025
The UK now needs another Brexit referendum, otherwise we are going to go around this thing for 50 years and tear ourselves apart.
In the years since the 2106 referendum it has been left to politicians to determine what Brexit is, notably Prime Ministers who have gotten themselves installed for multi-year terms:
- Theresa May, with her draft Withdrawal Agreement, and her EU Settled Status under which 7 million EU nationals were granted a permanent right to reside in the UK
- Boris Johnson, with his Northern Ireland Protocol
- Rishi Sunak, with his Windsor Framework, and his rejoining Horizon Europe
- Keir Starmer, with his desire for a re-set
Keir Starmer poses a particular challenge, because he has an overwhelming Parliamentary majority, because we know of the reliability of his verbal assurances (his previous opposition to a new runway at Heathrow airport, his espousal of the cause of WASPI women), because of his voting record on Brexit, and because his Parliamentary party is a Rejoiner party – nothing will satisfy them short of rejoining the EU.
The current discussion is about granting Fishing Rights to the EU again and accepting a mobility scheme for EU nationals under the age of 30 as the price for the UK being permitted to bolster EU security by joining the PESCO security arrangement – which Rishi Sunak’s government was already considering.
Were those things to be agreed the UK might be looking at:
- 3 or 4 million more EU nationals under the age of 30 coming to the UK, and 112 going the other way
- those 3 or 4 million obtaining EU Settled Status
- persons with EU Settled Status being offered the right to vote in UK elections and referenda
These incremental changes should not be forced on the country by an individual Prime Minister.
Instead a comprehensive plan needs to be voted upon by the country, and one binding on governments of whatever tartan, including Conservative, Reform, SNP, Plaid Cymru and LibDem.
Unfortunately the pattern of incremental changes, and always towards the direction of Remain/Rejoin, has become the norm. It was adopted by the Conservatives. As in so many other areas, the Conservatives created a precedent, and now Labour are maxing out on it.
This is not to say that Reform are a realistic alternative. For those with short memories, their leader walked away directly after the 2016 referendum with a message of ‘Job done’ and the sub-text of ‘now the people have spoken, it can be left to Conservative politicians to implement what the people have decided’. And then we got Theresa May.
A new referendum is needed, laying out the two alternative pathways, each one structured as a ‘set menu’ (table d’hôte), as opposed to the pick-and-choose (à la carte) approach we adopted when we were an EU member and which our politicians have continued to employ after we left, regardless of the views expressed by voters in the 2016 referendum and in subsequent general elections.
Here are the bones of the two pathways: ‘In’ means being in the EU hook, line and sinker. ‘Out’ means having a free trade agreement as it is in both sides’ interests, but we can have those with any country, and we can be in the United Nations, NATO, the International Monetary Fund and so on, and cooperate with the other nations in those bodies, but without anything further.
‘In’:
- Rejoin the European Union, the Single Market and the Customs Union
- Set a date for the transition to the Single Currency – the euro – no later than three years after the date of the referendum
- Bring the £sterling back into the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II) within one year of the referendum
- Order the Bank of England to immediately align its monetary policies to those of the European Central Bank
- Cancel all trade agreements with non-EU countries, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, as all such agreements will be negotiated at EU level on the UK’s behalf
- Re-adopt any EU laws that the UK has missed out on since it withdrew from the EU
- Re-introduce any and all EU laws, rules, standards and regulations that the UK was subject to while an EU member state but which it has repealed, reversed or withdrawn from since the UK’s withdrawal
- Add the EU budget contributions back into the forward projections for the UK’s finances as prepared by HM Treasury and vetted by the Office for Budget Reponsibility
‘Out’:
- Cancel EU Settled Status with retrospective effect from today’s date and do not replace it with any arrangement that permits those currently with EU Settled Status to continue to reside in the UK
- Impose a moratorium with retrospective effect from today’s date on those with EU Settled Status from making an application for UK citizenship
- Eliminate any legal pathway between EU Settled Status and UK citizenship
- Leave the Horizon Europe scientific programme
- Leave Erasmus, PESCO and any other EU programmes the UK has joined in the meantime
- Restore the UK’s Fishing Rights to the status they would have had under the Withdrawal Agreement, negating any change that might be negotiated after today’s date
- Withdraw from any Youth Mobility Scheme to which the UK government might subscribe between now and the referendum, and ensure that those benefitting from it do not obtain EU Settled Status and cannot make an application for UK citizenship
- Sign out of the European Convention on Human Rights
- Cancel the Northern Ireland Protocol to the Withdrawal Agreement
- Cancel the Windsor Framework
- Eliminate all measures in the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Windsor Framework that make dealings between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK any different from dealings between parts of the rest of the UK, and make dealings between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland the same as between the rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland
- Withdraw the many dispensations that benefit nationals of the Republic of Ireland, such as those pertaining to employment and education, and bring the status of nationals of the Republic of Ireland onto the same level in every particular as the status of nationals of any other EU member state
- Eliminate any area of jurisdiction for the European Court of Justice over matters to do with the UK
- Repeal Retained EU Law
- Replace any and all instances where the UK has agreed to abide by EU rules and standards, and replace those instances at most with a mutual recognition of rules and standards