Polly Toynbee: Without a public vote, we’re condemned to relive this debate for ever

Stalemate, impasse, roadblock was the ineluctable result of a crude in/out referendum dangling a dozen Brexit rainbows. No one true Brexit was ever put to voters. The closest to a healing compromise now is the well-constructed Kyle-Wilson amendment: let parliament agree a Brexit, but only if voters confirm their support. Put it to the people, as pressed by the million marchers, not a “second referendum” but a new proposition on an actual Brexit seen in the cold light of day: is this what you meant?

This week a series of indicative votes may find a parliamentary majority for something else – customs union, Norway or indeed the prime minister’s miserable offering. Polls show that people have changed their mind quite radically: an 8-10 percentage point lead for remain. Perversely, Theresa May insists scores of MPs should make a U-turn – but refuses voters any right to a change of heart.

Brexit petition to revoke article 50 reaches 5m signatures Read more

To impose any of the Brexits without consent would be the real democratic denial. Those passionately opposed just fear the result. Think ahead: how best to heal this Brexit-riven country? If people back whatever plan parliament puts to them in a fairly run vote, remainers would have to knuckle down and make the best of it. But if some bad Brexit – let alone a no deal – is imposed “by the elite” without public consent, imagine the democratic damage. Everlasting blame for any economic Brexit harm will rage on for a generation, and all who enabled it never be forgiven.

Bob Kerslake rightly predicts a judge-led enquiry into the gross incompetence of every Brexit act: a postmortem will be held. But we are not dead yet. Put this madness to the people and trust them. Only democratic confirmation that voters back a particular Brexit will stop this never-ending debate once and for all. Without a vote, we are doomed to relive it for ever.

• Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Henry Newman: May’s deal leaves all our future options open

Ever since the referendum starting gun was fired around three years ago, the UK has been trapped in a vortex of endless discussions about whether we should or shouldn’t leave the EU. This has paralysed our politics, distracting us from many other issues facing our country. Few people have changed their minds on Brexit but feelings are even more deeply held.

At one extreme of the debate, no-dealers insist we should “believe” in Britain, demanding we just go WTO. On the other, campaigners for a so-called people’s vote seek to rerun a divisive referendum campaign to overturn the 2016 result. Neither side offers a solution and at least one side will lose out, potentially seeing their worst nightmare realised.

Now, three weeks away from a potential new cliff-edge on 12 April, the country still faces the same three broad choices: a no-deal Brexit; a negotiated Brexit; or no Brexit. One of those options must happen. Westminster can’t keep kicking the can down the road.

Theresa May should have sought a cross-party approach on Brexit from the start. Instead, her rhetoric was divisive when it ought to have been unifying. The “citizens of nowhere” speech, and her refusal to guarantee EU nationals’ rights, contributed to a sense of a national culture war.

Play Video 6:17 'People’s vote' march: up close with anti-Brexit protesters at the 'biggest ever demo' – video

MPs across parliament have different views about their ideal Brexit – a Norway option (or common market 2.0), a Canada-style trade deal, or a customs union. The details are important, but also secondary to the fact that most MPs want to deliver the referendum result. And Brussels will not allow the UK to negotiate our actual future relationship until after we have left.

The current Brexit deal leaves the options open. With the withdrawal agreement, any relationship is possible as long as it protects the Irish border. It isn’t just Theresa May’s Brexit deal that MPs are being asked to vote on – it’s the only deal to which the 27 other member states of the EU have agreed. MPs should support it as the sole way of guaranteeing an orderly exit from the EU. Then, after Brexit, they will need to work together to find a compromise in the national interest for a sustainable long-term relationship.

• Henry Newman is the director of Open Europe. He has worked in the Cabinet Office and Ministry of Justice

Helen Goodman: Common market 2.0 offers all parties hope for common ground

As I write this, 2,000 (3%) of my constituents have signed the parliament petition to revoke article 50 (and they probably all read the Guardian), whereas in Camden the number is currently 16,000. This illustrates the sharp division over Brexit in this country – something the prime minister’s rhetoric has done nothing to heal. It is her brinkmanship that has brought us into this completely self-inflicted crisis, and parliament, when it finally takes control of the process, must – and I believe can – resolve it.

After the referendum I had several public meetings with my constituents and they told me they liked the common market, the social chapter and shared environmental regulation; what they disliked was the political union that developed later. They want economic cooperation, but not a European army. This idea has been brought up to date in a pamphlet, Common Market 2.0, by my colleague Lucy Powell MP and Tory MP Robert Halfon. Like Labour’s policy of a customs union, it is a serious attempt to find the common ground between leavers and remainers – in a way that removes the need for the Irish backstop and provides for frictionless trade. This is why Jeremy Corbyn has been right to reach out across the House to seek a consensus.

The European council has given us three weeks to find an alternative plan and avoid a catastrophic no-deal crash. I entirely understand the democratic case for a public vote, indeed I expect to be voting for one this week. If that were to happen, as well as putting remain on the ballot, it is important that the leave option is one parliamentarians can responsibly put on it too – one that does not destroy our manufacturing heartlands or put at risk the Irish peace process. The problem is that I am far from confident that this will pass through parliament, any more than May’s third meaningful vote can.

So members of parliament now need to work across party lines on the most important aspect of Brexit, bringing certainty to the future relationship in a rewritten political declaration.

• Helen Goodman is Labour MP for Bishop Auckland

John Redwood: I still want to leave on 29 March, and embrace the WTO

To restore faith and trust in our democracy, the two large parties that together won more than 82% of the vote in 2017 must keep their word and implement Brexit.

The Conservative manifesto said the party would take the UK out of the EU, single market and customs union, and stressed that no deal was better than a bad deal. It also promised to negotiate any withdrawal issues at the same time as a future partnership so all could be agreed and wrapped up within two years.

The Labour manifesto opened by saying it “would respect the referendum result”. It went on to expressly state that “freedom of movement will end when we leave”, effectively ruling out staying in the single market which comes with free movement. It also by implication ruled out customs membership by proposing a detailed UK trade policy that we could only follow outside of the customs union.

No one wants to leave with nothing agreed. Fortunately, a lot has been agreed outside the withdrawal agreement itself. Labour recommended we negotiate membership of the WTO government procurement agreement, which has now been accomplished. There are aviation services and haulage agreements ready for exit. The facilitation of trade requirements under WTO rules will come into effect, helping maintain the flow of goods across borders. Labour’s pledge to offer “an integrated trade and industrial strategy that boosts exports, investment and decent jobs in Britain” is still possible, but only if we leave.

I want the prime minister to keep her word that we will leave on 29 March. I agree with all those who say the withdrawal agreement is a bad agreement for the UK. I want her to go back to the EU this week and offer a comprehensive free-trade agreement along the lines of EU-Canada and EU-Japan, preferably with beefed-up provisions reflecting the absence of tariffs and some other barriers today between us.

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Were the EU just to accept talks on this, as I think they would, there would then be no need to impose any new tariffs or barriers between us all the time we were in negotiation of a full trade agreement.

The thing to remember about World Trade Organization rules is they are designed to lower barriers and promote free trade, not to force tariffs up. The WTO sees the UK switching to be a full member with vote and voice on trade matters as very positive, given the way the UK would be a voice for freer trade and higher standards worldwide once out of the EU.

Some in Labour are worried about a “race to the bottom” when we leave the EU. Let me reassure readers, many of us who want to leave want more better-paid jobs, higher levels of training and higher productivity. We are not campaigning to cut standards of employment protection. The UK has a proud record under both main parties of raising standards for employment, the environment and much else. That should remain true once out of the EU.

• John Redwood is the Conservative MP for Wokingham