Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The end of Brexit Britain

‘Brexit means Brexit’ may have been the most gormless slogan ever uttered by a British politician – a species not previous famed for its gorm.

But you knew what Theresa May meant. Legitimacy in Britain flowed from the Brexit referendum. Parliament could not question it. Judges were ‘enemies of the people’ when they even discussed it. You could say that the Leave campaign had won by telling outrageous lies. You could say that leaving the single market would cause needless damage to jobs and living standards. No matter. The referendum result stood, and could not be gainsaid.

The Tory right in particular dismissed all objections. Seventeen million voted against immigration, so we had to abandon the single market and freedom of movement. Try as we might, those of us who thought the country was about to engage in an act of needless self-harm had no way out. Brexit meant Brexit and Theresa May controlled the definitions.

All that has changed. Democratic legitimacy now flows from the general election of 2017, not the referendum of 2016. Theresa May justified her dash to the polls by saying it was a Brexit election.

I am writing this at 2am and the count could change. But it is clear that, although no one has won this election, Theresa May has lost it. Even if the Tories sneak to a majority, she has still lost. She would still have gone into an election confident of winning a landslide, run a campaign that was insultingly bad, and just about got out alive. Her authority is shot to pieces, and the assassin’s smile is upon Boris Johnson’s lips.

The new Parliament won’t reverse Brexit but I cannot see Labour, SNP Liberal Democrats, Greens and indeed moderate Tory MPs accepting a hard Brexit that would risk tariff barriers, queues at Dover and needless damage being done to manufacturing, agriculture, financial services and the IT industries.

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