Person 1: "Don't do this - I know you think jumping off this cliff is a good idea, and the water looks inviting, but it's deceptively shallow."
Person 2: "Hmm. Not sure."
Person 3: "Nah go on mate, it's fine, trust me."
When Person 2 jumps and breaks their leg, it's pretty weird to think that's Person 1's fault rather than a combination of Person 2 and 3. Yet that's exactly what's been happening here with the rewriting of history when it comes to the "leaving the single market" issue - it is extremely telling that it's figures from the original Remain campaign warning that it might/could/will happen being pointed to as evidence, because there isn't any of the leaders of the Leave campaign. And of course you won't, because the promises of the Leave campaign as a whole were internally inconsistent (even just looking to the official Vote Leave camp, not including Leave.EU as well). Rather, there are extensive newspaper articles, TV debates, Question Time panels, tweets, and more from those who were prominent pro-Leave campaigners strenuously denying that leaving would mean also leaving the Single Market. The entire pitch for leaving was that the UK could have its cake and eat it. The idea that it would have any kind of downside was a post-referendum development, and one which has developed slowly at that.
Just because three years is a long time in our current reality, I'd like to just lay out exactly the journey we got to when getting here in terms of what was and wasn't "promised" RE: the future relationship with the EU:
- During the run-up to the referendum, the two Leave campaigns promised variations on our existing benefits as members of the EU while touting the benefits of leaving. This was primarily framed as being about immigration and cultural identity, and it was (mostly) argued that leaving would actually be economically beneficial to the UK economy. These promises were all based on bunk economics, the kind which relies on voters agreeing with them on the basis of "common sense" (see also: "you have to have austerity because national debt is like a credit card, and the country is like a household"), and the £350m-a-week figure is a classic example. The actual figure is completely irrelevant because the systemic economic benefits of being part of the EU dwarf whatever sums are coming and going from the Treasury. This was why the warnings about leaving the Single Market came from the Remain side, not Leave. You can't get away from Freedom of Movement without also leaving the Single Market, of course, but the Leave promise was that you could - and that it would be painless. This is important.
- In the immediate aftermath of the referendum, the logical inconsistencies of the Leave campaign led to immediate flailing as every kind of faction in Westminster tried to take back their own version of control. There was no mandate for any specific kind of Brexit (and there remains no mandate for any specific version) because the ballot paper only specified "Leave" or "Remain". It is impossible to argue that a Remain win would have meant a mandate for joining Schengen and the Euro for the same reason. In the weeks after the result, then two options started to appear: "hard" and "soft" Brexit. However, nobody advocated no deal. Nobody. It is suicide, and it was always recognised as suicide by even the most ardent Leave campaigners. "Hard" Brexit, at first, still meant being in the Customs Union. That's how far things have drifted.
- The dynamic that emerged after May became PM, however, drove everything towards polarisation. Her interpretation of Brexit was always that it was primarily a demand for tighter controls on immigration, which, conveniently for her, was what she had always wanted. So we got the Lancaster House speech, which again was internally inconsistent because it insisted on the UK being given everything it has now, without the membership fee, and without having to take Freedom of Movement.
- By this point "being able to negotiate our own trade deals" started to become a rallying cry for the Leave parts of the Conservative Party, many of whom have had a hard-on for radically pro-capitalist authoritarian countries like Singapore for years or decades. This was never more than a niche interest of the Tories, let alone the wider country, yet the necessary departure from the Single Market thanks to May's red line on immigration, and it provided a handy post-facto economic justification for something being primarily guided by party politics and the interpretation of the result as a backlash to immigration. Worth noting here also that while I call this a "niche" interest, that's only in terms of numbers of people interested in it; those people also tend to be wealthy white people in positions of power in business and politics, so their influence is nevertheless substantial. They tend to be those who see the trade issue as part of a larger story of the UK as seafaring/swashbuckling/entrepreneurial/insert whatever bollocks you want here that ignores the fact this country is only rich because it stole so much from the parts and people of the world it conquered, and leaving the EU is a way of restoring the UK's autonomy in this sense. These people are also often passionate fans of the Commonwealth and want a more powerful version of it - with the UK as its leader, of course - and at the extreme ends there are those who advocate some kind of "Anglophone Union" between the white settler-colonial Commonwealth states of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and possibly outliers like Ireland or South Africa, or alternatively some kind of closer connection with the US. The fact that India is never included in there except when it comes to the dogwhistly topic of "skilled immigration" is surely just an oversight, I'm sure. And, of course, it goes without saying that this constituency, which is also the only constituency which actually favours No Deal as an option according to repeating polling, is also the one best insulated from the economic shocks of Brexit and/or in positions to profit from it when it comes to opening up the UK economy to wider global interests. The UK has never been a powerful independent country; it has always only been powerful when it either had an Empire to feed off, or the EEC/EU to offer herd protection.
- Thus began the radicalisation of the core Tory voter, which is at the core of why things are so tense. You can point to other issues in Parliament, and fuck, I know it's tempting when so many of them are such colossal asses, but really the buck stops with the wider country as far as I'm concerned. You can't stick 650 people in a room with wildly different beliefs, ideologies, principles, and red lines, and expect to be able to form a majority among them for an option which - at best, according to polling data from before and after the referendum, and until only very recently - had the support of 10-15% of the population. May went to the country to try and get a mandate for her version of Brexit and failed precisely because of this. No version of Brexit actually majority-popular, but the vague concept is, and that (along with the slight increased support overall for Remain) has been enough to sustain and feed the crisis. May tried to plot a course that would compromise between her own principles, the principles of her party, and her interpretation of the result, and failed. Who says anyone could do any better from any other party that won a majority?
- After the 2017 election Brexit therefore had "always" meant leaving the Customs Union and Single Market. The EU was consistent from the start about what this mean in terms of future arrangements, and the May deal reflected that - it was a Hard Brexit in all but name. The only point of contention was the backstop, which was a proposal that originated from the UK side. The reason that it causes such conniptions for Leavers in government and in the Conservative Party, however, is that it directly exposes the divide between what was promised and what was actually intended by the main Leave campaigners in positions of power in politics and business. If it was true that there was a solution to having the UK and Ireland in different customs systems without having to implement a new solid border in the north then there would be no worry; we'd have left, and those plans would be being implemented. However, such systems and technologies do not exist and are likely completely impossible - yet it is continually suggested that they do or will, and the EU is being unreasonable in, say, not "time limiting" the backstop. To be clear: if these technologies existed or were seen to be likely to exist soon, such a time limit would be unnecessary, because the backstop would fall away as unnecessary. But it can't. You can't leave the EU without a hard border in Ireland, and that is one that should have been much, much more prominent in the campaign debate, because I only ever saw it raised as a niche concern. But then we're dealing with Imperial nostalgists who yearn for the days of Ireland knowing its place, and whose entire worldview is predicated on the UK being simultaneously a weakened state held back by the EU chains but also so powerful that the EU needs us more than we need them. And this a group who is, again, the only constituency in the country which demands that we leave no matter the cost. With this also making up the core Tory vote, there is no choice but to move on to the next tactic to try and leave if May's deal wasn't going to do it, but that deal was already so much more extreme than the centre of public opinion that the only place to go to was No Deal, an option (as previously pointed out) was expressly rejected and labelled absurd by all sides in this not three years ago.
- And so we come to today. For those people for whom they have to leave the EU - because it'll make them richer, because it'll make their mates richer, because they're petty xenophobes, because they're rabid free marketeers who believe Singapore to be a paradise rather than Disneyland with the death penalty, because their entire political careers are staked on it regardless of whether they actually give a shit about the EU (looking at our PM on this one), because they are culturally antagonistic to EU unification, because etc etc (take your pick of any or all) - then no deal is the only option. The British press has normalised it, because the British press is itself overwhelmingly Eurosceptic (if not outright viciously hostile to Europe), and it's also been normalised by the stupidity, selfishness, rank mediocrity, and shortsightedness of politicians repeating slogans like "no deal is better than a bad deal". Any form of continued European collaboration and friendliness is demonised - for example, there is no reason to have included notice that the UK wished to withdraw from Euratom as well as the EU when Article 50 was initiated, but it had to be to maintain the hard line for negotiations (a nonsense rationale - the EU has given us everything we wanted, and if No Deal happens it is entirely because of UK-internal actors).
All of this, then, leads to here: the only options are No Deal, or Remain. This is absurd. At no point were either of these options the most popular possibility in the aftermath of the referendum. Polling has consistently shown majorities for Norway-style halfway houses as the future relationship. And it should go without saying that No Deal is only an option because, for insane reasons, people in power seem to believe it's a good negotiating tactic. There is no evidence that it is, has, or will sway negotiations. There is no logic that it would. Again, the EU gave us everything we asked for in May's deal, but it still wasn't painted as extreme enough because for the minority radicals in positions of power nothing short of cutting the UK off completely from the protection and collaboration of the EU will be enough for what they want to do to this country. Throughout this process the EU has been magnanimous in a way that has shocked me as a left Eurosceptic - I saw what they did to Greece. But the UK has been a complete shitshow from start to finish, with a Conservative Party led by intellectual pygmies whose guiding instinct is power at all costs.
Anyway. This isn't directed at you specifically, really. I'm just kind of sick of being deadened to the dull thrum of bullshit beating against the shore, and furthermore how many people I thought were kind, sensible, rational people have started saying things like "well we need to just get it over with, and if No Deal is the only way then so be it." Fucking hell, it takes longer to earn a degree, for fuck's sake. There's no crisis here except for the one manufactured by the Conservatives, and the extreme right which they're terrified of losing votes to. Brexit is a process; it will take at least two decades to be sure exactly how fucked the UK economy is as a result. But rest assured - no matter how much economic forecasting is art as much as science - it will be bad. Article 50 should be withdrawn, and the only reason it hasn't is because the people driving this know that this is their only shot. Leave with No Deal, fine, you fuck the country, but at least you know nobody can reverse it. In any sane world we'd be spending 5+ years researching different options, going through consultations, maybe another referendum or two, and eventually figure out what the fuck it is that people want this country to be. That's how societies and nations are built - compromise, collaboration, and messy imperfections that you get used to living with over time. Not this mindless rush to the cliff edge.
There is no good Brexit for anyone who isn't in a position to fuck the rest of us over with it.
