I have spent the last two years rolling my eyes at people’s calls for a second referendum on Brexit. I thought it was impossible, and diverted Remainers’ energies away from shaping the Brexit settlement, making a hard or no deal Brexit more likely.

I now think that I was wrong, and a second referendum is both possible and desirable.

During the referendum campaign, while I was Executive Director of the Adam Smith Institute, it was clear to me that leaving the single market suddenly would be a disaster. I favoured “Liberal Leave” for a time, mostly on the basis that the UK and the EU often had quite incompatible visions of the future, and it would be better to be friendly neighbours than noisy lodgers.

In the end, I decided that most Leaver voters were more interested in things like ending Freedom of Movement and achieving full domestic control over regulation that necessitated leaving the single market, and which I either didn’t care about or actively opposed. I am very pro-immigration, and I care about prosperity through any means — if domestic control meant we became a less open economy and society, I wouldn’t want it. I think my pre-referendum post on Leave has mostly turned out to be right, and I’m glad I voted to Remain.

Since the announcement of the Withdrawal Agreement and Jo Johnson’s resignation, it has begun to look much more likely that a second referendum might happen. As Stephen Bush points out, Sam Gyimah’s support now means that there may be a Parliamentary majority for a second referendum, after May’s deal fails, even if the government would need to go along with it too.

These are the main reasons why I think a second referendum would be a good thing. The point of this post is to explain which arguments have swayed me, not to try to prove that I am right. I don’t expect this to change anyone’s minds, except perhaps the few people who share my basic outlook on the world and are wavering about what should happen next.