The stress and strain of trying to deliver Brexit seems to have triggered an allergy to elections in the prime minister. The thought of defending her withdrawal agreement to the public in a referendum provokes its symptoms, but Theresa May’s most severe allergic reaction has been reserved for elections to the European Parliament, due to be held on May 23. The UK, she says, should avoid taking part if at all possible.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, currently negotiating with the prime minister on how to leave the EU, doesn’t seem too keen either. Nor, it must be said, are EU leaders, who worry that unstable British politics will add more volatility to what will be, in any case, an opportunity for populist parties of right and left.
As leader of a party which did rather badly last time MEPs were elected, some might expect me to agree enthusiastically to sweep this democratic event under the carpet. Not a bit of it. The previous round of European elections was held in the dog days of the UK coalition government. My predecessor as Liberal Democrat leader but one, Nick Clegg, deviated from the usual rule of European elections, which is: “say nothing whatever about Europe”. He had instead — bravely — taken on Nigel Farage, then the UK Independence party leader, in one-to-one television debates, defending the UK’s membership of the EU when neither David Cameron nor Ed Miliband, the two main party leaders, were willing to do so.
In 2014, we Lib Dems invited the public to back us as the strongest pro-European force in British politics. Perhaps because voters were meting out punishment after four difficult years of coalition, the result was disastrous. We lost all but one of our 12 MEPs. Ukip topped the poll and provoked Mr Cameron to make his strongest commitment yet to holding a referendum on leaving the EU. In short, the last set of European elections were the push-off point for the long, spiralling, treacherous flume on which the country has been descending ever since.
Yet Brexit has brought about at least two paradoxes. One is that Brexit has fomented in Britain the biggest pro-European movement on the entire continent of Europe: 6m people signed a petition to revoke Article 50; hundreds of thousands, perhaps more, marched. A second is that no matter what form of Brexit is chosen — if one is ever agreed — the UK is likely to continue following EU law. The two-year transition period which Mrs May has negotiated in the withdrawal agreement requires it. For both reasons, elections to choose British MEPs seem like a good idea: we must ensure democratic accountability over an organisation we are still tied to, at least for the time being.
With each passing day, the immutable legitimacy which Brexiters have tried to accord the 2016 referendum result is eroded. My sense is that Mrs May knows European elections will undermine the notion that one democratic event should rule out a subsequent one. Holding elections for MEPs will assist the cause of another referendum, pitting Remain against her Brexit deal (or some alternative, or no deal, as millions still appear to want that option, despite the costs).
There will need to be some grown-up thinking about how best to bring together pro-Europeans. There are several groups which have been involved in the People’s Vote campaign, other than ourselves, who have indicated an intention to compete in the elections, as is their right. But there is a risk that this undermines the overall cause.
Fragmentation on the pro-EU side could well be matched by various groups flying the Brexit flag. This all adds to the sense that the era of two-party politics, which so many believed had returned with polarised voting in 2015 and 2017, might prove shortlived. Every party and every list of candidates will be asked if they support another referendum. Labour’s pro-Remain activists will surely punish those who do not answer unequivocally in the positive. Meanwhile, neither Remainers nor Leavers are likely to be motivated to support the Conservative party: it has abandoned and abused the former in a fruitless effort to sate the desires of the latter, pleasing neither.
Now that Brexit is the status quo and Remain the insurgency, I believe we have an opportunity to demonstrate the appetite for stopping Brexit. And if 2019 European elections hasten the dissolution of the two shattered major parties, people on both sides of the debate about membership of the EU may be very pleased at the result.
The writer is leader of the Liberal Democrat party
