Returning to the electorate is the most democratic way to resolve the current Brexit impasse.

The 2016 referendum has not been ignored or betrayed.  The Government and Parliament have been working on Brexit for 3 years now.  A withdrawal agreement has been negotiated.  As has a political declaration on a future relationship.

Parliament continues to debate but reject these.  This has been hard work and has taken up much Parliamentary time detracting from other much needed business that mean the underlying conditions of austerity, inequality and alienation still fester.

The next democratic step forward would be to seek further instruction from the people now a deal has been concluded.

A single issue ballot

Doing this via general election or treating the European elections as a proxy referendum risk making those single issue elections when they are so much more than that.  In those elections voters should feel free to vote for the party or candidate they think would best represent them in the UK or European Parliament across all issues.

I have sympathy for those who argue this is how European elections will be interpreted though.  Polls generally suggest that pro-Brexit (Brexit party, UKIP) and pro-Remain (Greens, Liberal Democrats, Change UK, SNP) camps are equally balanced on around 25-30% of the vote.  Labour and the Conservatives poll around 40% for their orderly Brexit negotiations, leaning slightly softer towards the Labour version.  The headline splash of the neo-Faragist pale blue is a focal story though whilst you have to add up the pro-Remain parties to establish their equivalence.  In a media ecosystem big on amplification and short on attention these snapshots matter.

However, I still think a single issue question demands a single issue vote.  The question of Europe should not have been put to the people in 2016 when it wasn’t a single issue question, but it needs to be put directly to the people now it has become one.

Brexiteer outrage that consulting further withe the people on Brexit and allowing the electorate to choose a relationship with the EU is a democratic betrayal that would precipitate violent disorder is misplaced.  It is their undemocratic way of clinging to their one, ill-gotten, success and deflecting from their subsequent political failure to deliver.

With Government collective responsibility and party discipline unravelling we are left with a hung Parliament that is exhausted, bereft of ideas and running short on Parliamentary business.  They can only anchor their arguments with what the public thought then not what they think now and the end of the negotiation period.

We can also see from these polls that the Conservative vote is crumbling.  It now faces a three-way challenge from the Brexit Party and UIP on the right and Change UK on the centre.  If the 2016 referendum was designed to settle the European question and unify the Conservative Party it has been a miserable failure.  Party considerations are still coming first despite the ramifications for the nation as a whole.  This question of our future with Europe must be separated from party politics.

The choice of a future relationship must be put directly to the people

I would favour a choice between the deal we already have (our EU membership with it various rebates, opt-outs and vetoes ), the terms and direction set out in the Government’s agreement or the preferred deal of Parliament.

This latter should be the option that prevails in Parliamentary indicative votes once EU membership, the WA and procedural options such as a revoke/referendum has been excluded.  Just a straightforward indicative vote where MPs must vote for one of the options put forward.

The option with the most votes (it wouldn’t have to be a majority) would be put forward as Parliaments proposal.  No abstentions, no votes against.

Realistically it would therefore be one of Custom’s Union, Common Market 2.0, Malthouse compromise or leave without an agreement.

This would allow an option to deliver the Brexit mandate to be proposed by both the Government and Parliament as two leave options alongside our current membership arrangements.

The challenges of a free and fair referendum

This would be a difficult referendum.  The question would matter.  The conduct of the referendum would matter.  The campaigns would matter.

We would need to move on from current terminology which is mostly about principles and procedures and focus minds on the terms of specific future relationships with Europe, a trading partner we cannot ignore.

Unfortunately , the lessons and irregularity of the precious referendum have not yet been heeded.  Our systems will struggle to redesign democracy for the social media era.  This challenge cannot he avoided though; it must be confronted and we must try.

Damian Collins’ select committee investigations lead the way in tackling these challenges but resolving them would take longer than needed to answer the question of Europe in the current time frame.  Our democracy must be reformed for  21st century by the next general election but for now temporary arrangements would be needed to allow people to deliberate and vote freely but fairly, avoiding the hazards of the previous campaign whilst allowing a referendum to be held this summer.

A national conversation

This is where a citizen’s assembly or other temporary representative mechanism could come in, to deliberate on this question alone outside party structures.  This assembly could contain advocates of each option to debate and discuss.  These three assembly groups could be charged with leading each official campaign supported by the civil service and each working with a publicly allocated budget and an independent fact checker.

Ideally, there would be devolved regional and local assemblies beneath a national assembly engaged in their own town hall and market place open spaces that feed into the national conversation like tributaries.

This is a question of national importance; it should be transparently funded by taxpayers not hidden donors. We do not need the same tired party politics and media conglomerations.  Nor do we need dark ads and propagandist bots.

We need new voices, debating the future, not the past.  This referendum should be a decision made by all, for all, based on a national conversation that informs and includes all.  At the end of this national conversation we have a ballot that hands a renewed mandate to the Government and Parliament to work on over the next 3 years.  The people can then start on the next national conversation we need: on the need to urgently respond to our changing climate.

This won’t be easy, and we may not have much time but I have faith that where there is a will there’s a way and I am hopeful that that ingenuity, pragmatism, fair play and good humour of our nation will ultimately prevail.