If you doubt this, just recall our own republic referendum in 1999, in which the decision to offer a particular model for the republic caused lots of republicans to vote against it. There is almost zero prospect that a vote specifically on a hard Brexit would return a yes vote, which is partly why hard Brexiters would never accept a second referendum putting such a proposal to the people. The people’s Brexit argument is therefore less democratic than it sounds. Democracy doesn’t work by having one ill-defined vote once. It works by repeatedly seeking the will of the people, and by working with the representatives the people give you. Ultimately, there’s no really persuasive way of arguing that suspending the Parliament is a democratic thing to do. Parliament’s getting in the way, all right. It’s just that it’s obstructing BoJo’s will more than the people’s. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video But let’s assume Johnson succeeds in producing a hard Brexit. What then? Even leaving aside the very serious predictions that this will deliver awful consequences such as medical and food shortages, Johnson would have to start striking a multitude of trade deals to replace the ones Britain already has via the EU. That would be a lengthy, laborious process. And whatever harm is suffered in the meantime, the end result would be that Britain had dismantled the arrangements of globalisation (the EU), then reassembled them (through free trade agreements). If that all seems absurd and incongruous, that’s because it inevitably is. In Britain, as elsewhere (particularly America), we’re watching an attempt to square the circle of globalisation; we’re watching governments trapped by what Harvard economist Dani Rodrik called "globalisation trilemma". Rodrik’s basic idea is that hyperglobalisation, national sovereignty and democracy simply cannot all co-exist. We might talk as though they do, but ultimately, you can only have two of them fully at once.

Illustration: Simon Letch Credit: A nation can be responsive to the desires of its people, but only if it is prepared to restrict its involvement in globalisation. Alternatively, a nation can fully embrace globalisation, reordering its economy to facilitate global trade and even the global movement of people – but doing so comes at the expense of the democratic will. Loading A final option would be to give people a direct stake in the processes of globalisation itself, which would have people voting in something like global (or in the EU’s case, regional) elections. Obviously, that erodes the sovereignty of the nation state, even to the point of non-existence depending on how far you want to take this. The Brexit example illustrates this vividly. It holds that to be in the EU is to surrender national sovereignty. So it responds by enacting the popular will to reduce its participation in globalisation by leaving it.

Now we’re seeing the final contradiction play out. Brexit has hitherto failed because parliamentarians simply cannot agree on how it should happen. Hard Brexiters dismiss any deal with the EU as too compromised – that is, it leaves Britain too integrated in the EU to be truly divorced from it. But the problem is these people still believe in free trade and capitalism. Illustration: Andrew Dyson Credit: Their objection to the EU isn’t on socialist grounds that aim to empower the working class over mega-corporations, or to re-establish a national manufacturing base that has long departed for Asia. This trick of rebuilding globalisation through lots of new bilateral agreements is really designed to preserve the mythology of national sovereignty: to say Britain will remain in the global economy, but on its own terms.

Sure, that’s a bit false, since free trade agreements typically require some kind of diminution of sovereignty anyway, and since Britain’s involvement in the EU was an act of sovereignty in the first place. But it remains nonetheless an attempt to reconcile the "hyperglobalisation" and "national sovereignty" limbs of Rodrik’s trilemma. And it is coming at the cost of democracy – to the extent Britain is prepared to suspend its own Parliament to achieve this. Loading What the Tories definitely won’t do is tame globalisation by asserting more national economic control. That would mean things such as stronger unions that ensure better conditions for workers or try to raise wages irrespective of how similar workers in poorer countries are paid, which has been anathema to Conservative politics since at least Thatcher. And they certainly won’t admit to, or embrace, the limitations of the nation state, advocating for a more global governance. National politicians almost never do, since to do so would be to advertise their decreasing relevance. But if these aren’t viable solutions, we should fear for democracy, because if Rodrik is even vaguely correct, something has to give. And it seems that’s the limb the political class – especially those so committed to a marriage of capitalism and nationalism – values least.

Waleed Aly is a regular columnist and a presenter on The Project.