May’s defeat should dispel any illusion that there is a happy ending to the Brexit story. The truth of the matter is that the project that defined May’s premiership — negotiating a Brexit deal acceptable to both the EU and pro-Brexit legislators in her Conservative Party — was structurally impossible. The terms on which Conservative Brexiteers wanted to leave the EU were not acceptable to EU negotiators, and the compromises necessary to bring EU negotiators on board were not acceptable to Conservative Brexiteers. No amount of negotiating could address this dilemma. [...]
That’s obviously not what happened. The Leave campaign won principally by manipulating British xenophobia, but also by making a series of grandiose promises: Britain wouldn’t be hurt economically by quitting the EU’s common market; in fact, it would stand to regain hundreds of millions of dollars a week to spend on its health care system. Britain would have no problem getting out of shared EU regulations; Brexit would “take back control” of the legal system. [...]
The fundamental and insurmountable problem is that Brexit was premised on a fantasy — a painless withdrawal from the European Union — that no prime minister could have delivered. Theresa May is no one’s idea of a great negotiator, but her fundamental project — a negotiated settlement to the Brexit situation — was doomed for structural reasons beyond her control.[...]
Realistically, either no deal or a second referendum is the most likely alternative. Sure, Britain and the EU could agree to postpone the March 29 Brexit deadline, but it’s not clear what future negotiations could accomplish. It’s been two and a half years since the Brexit vote, and no one has come close to figuring out how to resolve the fundamental tension between what British Brexiteers demand and what the EU can live with. Their best attempt just went down in flames.
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