This newspaper was no supporter of the SNP’s Scottish independence referendum in 2014. But at least, for a full 10 months before that vote, it was extremely clear what the electorate was being asked to approve in Scotland’s referendum. That was because, in November 2013, the SNP government had published a 648-page white paper that laid out, in sometimes dizzying detail, what an independent Scotland might look like. As a result, when the vote took place, no one could reasonably complain that they didn’t know what the SNP had in mind if they won.
The contrast between that situation and the one we now face in Britain as a whole following the Brexit vote last week could hardly be greater. With the exception of the one unassailable democratic fact that the UK will now leave the European Union, no one can currently say what Brexit will actually look like. The more than 17 million people who cast their votes for leave last week all agreed on what they did not want – EU membership. But there was no clarity whatever from the leave campaign itself, or among those who supported its cause, about what they would put in its place, above all in terms of the future UK-EU relationship. There was no white paper, let alone 648 pages of one. In fact, there was nothing at all on the table – not a programme, not a policy and not a procedural plan – beyond withdrawal itself.
The details of what those 17 million people have actually voted for grow more unclear by the day, and thus more destabilising. On Monday David Cameron told the Commons that he has established an EU withdrawal unit in Whitehall to undertake what the departing prime minister described as the most complex and most important task that the civil service has had to undertake in generations. Mr Cameron talked about a new negotiation with the EU. But this is highly misleading. He cannot tell the civil service even the broad outlines of what that task involves, because he has handed in his notice. Nor can his successor, who has not been chosen yet. There is also the not exactly minor point that the 27 member states of the EU will have to decide a view too.
All this could have been clarified in the campaign, but it was not. There is therefore a hiatus as the Tory party not only seeks a new leader but works out what a Brexit looks like. It’s also a hiatus during which stock values tumble, currency markets slide and businesses begin to cover their bets amid the uncertainty. This doesn’t help the EU sort out its own post-Brexit course either. Always remember that there aren’t just two but 28 in this broken marriage.
On Monday Boris Johnson began to soften up leave voters for the idea that Brexit would be a slow process and would leave access to the single market and much migration from the EU still intact. As so often, Mr Johnson was fuzzy on the details and evasive on the hard choices that would have to be made. Leave’s victory owed much to the fact that it managed to get through the campaign without having to choose between tight border control and continued single market access. But we have to choose now.
Britain’s domestic political crisis naturally requires time in which to play itself out. It is unrealistic to pretend that a shock of this size can be absorbed within days or even weeks. But Britain must discipline itself to grasp that the timetable is not open-ended. The EU-27 cannot be expected to accommodate the lazy pretence being peddled by Mr Johnson that Britain can have its cake and eat it.
On Tuesday in Brussels Mr Cameron will formally tell the European council about Britain’s vote. He will then leave town. On Wednesday the 27 will continue to discuss Europe’s future without him. This is not just a symbolic change. It is the moment at which the reality becomes clear that Britain is out of the room. Would that it were otherwise. But both the UK and the EU must begin to get real about the new world that last week’s dismaying decision has created.