Will there be a second referendum for Brexit?

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Given the uncertainty in the United Kingdom, a second referendum begins to sound like a solution to the political stalemate

The search for an agreement that ends Brexit has become a nightmare for the British parliament, and particularly for Prime Minister Theresa May, who is running out of options to unblock the political gridlock in which her country finds itself.

Leer en español: ¿Se viene un segundo referendo para el Brexit?

The reality of the case is that the leaders of all the parties are under a lot of pressure. The threat of a feared 'no deal' has the whole United Kingdom ensuring an early solution to the problem.

Both Theresa May's conservative party and the opposition led by Jeremy Corbyn are publically against a second referendum, but the rumor of a second popular referendum seems to indicate that this may be the case to avoid a 'no deal', which harms industry, politics, and contributes to public discontent.

The British bookmaker William Hill estimates that the possibility of a second referendum on the Brexit issue is at 54%. "We believe that May is running out of options, and the most digestible of the two remaining options (one of which includes repealing Article 50) is to submit the issue once again to popular suffrage", said Rupert Adams of William Hill for CNN .

May under unimaginable pressure

The issue of Brexit has put Theresa May under the lens of the entire political universe of the United Kingdom. After the European Union announced that the United Kingdom could cancel the entire Brexit process without consulting the Member States of the organization, invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the possibility of reversing the process began to take on importance.

Faced with the threat of May opting to stop the process and stay, the members of parliament more committed to the Brexit being carried out, led by Jeremy Corbyn and the Labor party, filed a motion of censure that seeks to dismiss the current first Minister of her office. The motion of censure will not be withdrawn until after Christmas, according to the Telegraph newspaper.

The motion of censorship was also joined by members of the Scottish National Party, led by Nicola Sturgeon, who was also effusive at the time of rejecting a possible unilateral decision to cancel the Brexit process.

"I think it is possible that a motion of censure could succeed at this time. This is a weak and unstable government that becomes weaker and more unstable with each passing day", Sturgeon told Sky News.

This is the pressure that May faces, with the delays and the difficulty of reaching a Brexit agreement and with the option of reversing the process in its entirety, those in favor of leaving the European Union have opted for a motion of censure that puts it in check. Now, May has to comply with the demands of the opposition or risk losing everything.

The danger of not reaching an agreement

The negotiations in search of an agreement to stop belonging to the European Union have been a source of much controversy within British politics. The former government minister of the Conservative Party of May, Jo Johnson, said the inability to reach a desirable solution to the political gridlock has been "the biggest failure of British policy since the Suez Canal crisis."

The deadline to reach an agreement with the European Union that satisfies the British parliament is March 29, 2019, and with negotiations more stagnant than ever, meeting this date is presented as a remote possibility.

Also read: Brexit: Theresa May’s Achilles heel

The risk of reaching this date without an agreement is incalculable, and according to the Bank of England, a 'no deal' would imply that the British economy decreased by 7.7% in the next 15 years, an economic damage that is calculated would be worse to the crisis of 2008.

With all this pressure on, it is hard to believe that Theresa May is not considering, even behind the scenes, the possibility of saving all these dangers, or even postponing them, through a new referendum that delegitimizes the decision to withdraw from the European Union.

LatinAmerican Post | Pedro Bernal
Translated from "¿Se viene un segundo referendo para el Brexit?"