SNP must fight compromise – it's the soft Brexiteers who should change position

But it’s the Commons that now has to find the way ahead. May is beyond powerless and should resign.

A temporary government of national unity could then guide the UK through a crucial week and a half in order to find a solution ahead of the EU’s emergency summit, now fixed for Wednesday April 10 (two days before the new no-deal cliff edge of April 12).

But the risk is that either the Commons still fails to find a majority for anything, in which case no deal threatens, or it ends up driving the UK towards a deeply undemocratic, undesirable, misnamed “soft” Brexit.

READ MORE: SNP hint at move towards backing customs union Brexit option

MPs will now have more indicative votes on options on Monday. The vote that came closest to a majority last Wednesday was Ken Clarke’s customs union amendment. But the highest number of votes was for a “confirmatory” referendum on any deal that is agreed. Meanwhile, the Norway Plus/Common Market 2.0 proposals did less well than expected. And, the amendment led by Joanna Cherry, to replace no deal with revoking Article 50 as the “no agreement” default did better than many expected coming in just four votes behind the Common Market 2.0 proposal.

There is now heated discussion, debate and manoeuvring going on behind the scenes at Westminster to see which option can get a majority (and the largest majority) on Monday. With the exception of no deal or revoking Article 50, any route ahead will need the agreement of the EU27 for a longer extension of Article 50 – whether to allow a General Election, a People’s Vote, the negotiation of a soft Brexit or a combination of these.

And so the UK will probably now hold European Parliament elections in May. While there is surely irony in this after almost three years of Brexit talks, it’s a great opportunity to have a serious debate on staying in the European Union – and a chance for voters, given the use of proportional representation, to vote directly for pro-Remain parties.

One compromise route, in finding a way ahead through the disastrous political and economic mess of Brexit, could be to agree a soft Brexit with the EU and to put it to a People’s Vote with Remain on the ballot paper. But there is plenty of manoeuvring going on to get a soft Brexit in some form over the line on its own on Monday. Politically, it would be quite extraordinary if the UK chose to move to a soft Brexit of staying in the EU’s customs union and single market.

It would mean that Brexit had been delivered not by the Brexiteers, nor the Tory Government, but by a cross-party group of MPs which, to succeed, would need Labour, some Tories, the LibDems, The Independent Group – and quite probably the votes of the SNP’s 35 MPs.

This would be a Brexit that took away sovereignty, took away the UK’s current representation, voice and vote and reduced it to a rule-taking lobbyist in Brussels. Opinion polls have shown repeatedly that a majority of Leavers, unsurprisingly, oppose this form of Brexit. So when it’s touted as a compromise, it’s not clear who it is compromising with. Some suggest the soft Brexiteers are really Remainers – but MPs like Stephen Kinnock and Nick Boles who have vociferously promoted this option do not sound like Remainers.

READ MORE: Brexit has highlighted the critical absence of courage at Westminster

And it’s clear, in the end, Brexit is binary. Either the UK stays in the EU or it leaves. Under a soft Brexit, the UK leaves the EU – there’s nothing Remainer about that. Apart from creating a major democratic deficit, where the UK follows EU regulations, laws and trade agreements with no genuine say in them, a Norway Plus Brexit will still create border frictions too.

In a Norway Plus deal, the UK would be outside EU agricultural and fisheries policy requiring border checks on those products – including between Britain and Northern Ireland (a backstop still).

Fisheries products would face tariffs and checks, highly problematic for many west of Scotland fisheries amongst others.

Soft Brexit proponents were highly, and rather bizarrely, critical of the SNP’s MPs for not backing Common Market 2.0 or a customs union last Wednesday.

But apart from the fact that Boles and Kinnock’s proposal doesn’t specifically embrace a customs union and denigrates free movement, the politics has clearly moved on. The UK public no longer want to leave the EU.

So the SNP MPs should not now compromise to back an undemocratic soft Brexit. It’s time for the soft Brexiteers to compromise, and reflect the UK majority who want to remain, and agree to hold a People’s Vote. That should be the SNP’s condition. Voters from four out of five of Scotland’s main parties (just not the Tories) all back Remain and another vote – at over 70% support.

The SNP MPs must fight, with others, for a People’s Vote. And if in the end, there’s no agreement in the Commons, then it will come down to no deal or revoke. There is no Commons majority for no deal, so faced with that, MPs would have to go for revoke. It’s time for the SNP to hold its nerve. They should not, as the Tory Government implodes, be complicit in Brexit.