Seconds Out?

When it comes to the United Kingdom as a whole, then we have a House of Commons with its own mandate from the electorate. Like any national referendum, therefore, a second referendum on the EU would be undesirable. But it is becoming inevitable.

Never mind the Labour Party Conference. It would be rich beyond Croesus for Blairites, of all people, to demand that attention be paid to the resolutions of that of all assemblies.

No, if Theresa May were to be removed as Prime Minister, then that would be only in order to deliver both that referendum itself and then a victory for Remain. Those are the people who have always controlled the Conservative Party, and those are the people who always will. 

They are in any case terrified of losing between 10 and 20 seats, if not more, to the Liberal Democrats in the Remain heartlands that are the South outside London. They make no secret of that terror. Ask them. They will tell you.

What if the two options were Remain and what we are obliged to call No Deal, setting us free from State Aid rules and from restrictions on capital controls, to enter the world of the BRICS and of the Belt and Road Initiative, the world of our historic fishing rights in accordance with international law, and the world of an extra £350 million per week for the NHS?

In that case, vote for the world and then get stuck right into it.

But what if the two options were Remain and the only thing worse than staying in the EU, namely Chequers, or the "Norway Option", or what have you, which would reduce the United Kingdom to a colony and a satrapy, a rule-taker but not a rule-maker, obliged to pay while having no say?

In that case, vote Remain and then, as in 1975, resume the struggle the next day.