In a way, John Major’s big speech today is much ado about nothing. The former Conservative Prime Minister thinks Brexit is a mistake and that the British people should think again. So far, so ordinary.
But the interesting aspect of all of this is what his preferred escape hatch is: a free vote for MPs to accept or reject the final EU-UK deal and potentially a second referendum on our membership.
What Major has done is give voice to something a lot of pro-Remain MPs are saying privately: which is that they could “vote down the deal” when the government’s so-called “meaningful vote” comes around.
But the difficulty here is that is not at all clear if “voting down the deal” means that the government goes back and tries again or if the United Kingdom simply leaves without a deal. As negotiating treaties is a power reserved to the executive, unless a very specifically-worded motion is then voted through in lieu of the deal, the interpretation of that vote is still one of ministers, as is the terms of the “meaningful vote”, which could, therefore, be limited to a “deal or no deal” type.
That’s before you get into the Article 50 process itself, which is designed essentially to reduce the leverage of the departing nation to the European Union’s benefit. There is a lot that is not clear about Article 50: for example, it is an open question whether the British government can unilaterally revoke Article 50 and end Brexit or if that decision has to be approved by member states. The deal has to be voted on not just by Parliament but by the European Parliament and by some member states as well (it all depends on what power the head of government has to act freely at a European level). So again, it is not open-and-shut that voting down the deal in the British parliament means a softer Brexit or no Brexit at all. It may mean simply that the United Kingdom leaves without a deal – a possibility that is distinctly underpriced at Westminster and by the markets.
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