On the last day of campaigning in the general election Theresa May for the first time made a sensible comment on Brexit in place of the mindless mantras with which the electorate had been being fed. “Brexit,” she said, “is the basis for everything else”. She cannot at that time have envisaged the circumstances in which this precept would have to be given effect. But it remains as valid today in the aftermath of the election and with a hung parliament outcome as the day it was uttered.
No doubt the electoral setback to the Conservatives has many other complex causes, but the election was quite explicitly called, three years earlier than necessary, in order to get a popular mandate for the Brexit negotiations scheduled to start on 19 June. That is what the prime minister asked for; and that is what she failed to get. So there is no mandate for the sort of hard Brexit approach set out in the January Lancaster House speech and in the 29 March letter to Donald Tusk. That approach is unlikely to command a majority in the new parliament . So to try to move ahead on that basis would surely be a travesty of the democratic process.
In the confused and unpredictable parliamentary situation that now exists, with the distinct possibility of another general election taking place before the expiry of the two year Article 50 deadline in March 2019, it would seem sensible to avoid trying to answer too many of the fundamental Brexit-related questions at once. Those who believe that any outcome to the negotiations should be submitted to a second referendum will continue to take that view. But there is no sense and no need to try to settle that now. We are at the beginning of the negotiations not near to their end. And a period of silence about the zany idea that no deal would be better than a bad deal would also be welcome.
What is needed is a more flexible, positive and open-minded approach than was previously envisaged. Why on earth try to rule out from the outset continued membership of the single market and the customs union, particularly when either of those two frameworks would provide the most straightforward and effective way of avoiding the re-imposition of border controls in Ireland? Why splatter red lines about the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and about the absolute primacy of restrictions on the free movement of people which have yet to be devised?
Better, surely, to move forward with a clear and generous offer to protect the status of EU citizens here and of our citizens in other member states; and to spell out in clear and non- transactional terms the new partnership we are seeking in the fields of security, of research and of foreign policy. Such an approach ought to be able to get cross-party support in the new parliament and thus to provide the government with the sort of opening mandate it needs if it is to be taken seriously by our negotiating partners.
Would it not be sensible too to submit such an approach for approval to parliament before negotiations begin in Brussels? If that means a short delay in the June 19/20 date for opening negotiations, that should not be a drama, given the fact that serious negotiations are unlikely to get under way until after the German elections in September. In any case to open negotiations on the day of the Queen’s Speech and before either House of Parliament has had an opportunity to debate the new government’s programme, let alone to approve it, would seem a dangerous short cut.
The outcome of the election certainly does not make the Brexit negotiations any easier, but nor does it necessarily make a successful outcome to those negotiations less likely. What are needed in the new circumstances are cool heads and a more consensual, less ideological, step by step approach.