The post you are reporting:
Michael Deacon writing in the Telegraph.
Think politics is in a mess? Believe it or not, it could be worse. Far worse. A group of Remainers are demanding what they call a “people’s vote” on the final Brexit deal. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that the Prime Minister consented. What would the ballot paper say? Perhaps it would give us only two options: either “Endorse the Government’s deal”, or “Leave without a deal”. Well, that wouldn’t be much good. The Government’s deal could be a total dud. That doesn’t automatically mean that “no deal” would be popular, though. Many voters – including plenty who voted Leave in 2016 – wouldn’t fancy either option.
In which case, the ballot paper could offer a third option: “Send the Government back to renegotiate”. Well, that wouldn’t be any good either. There wouldn’t be enough time. The Article 50 period runs out next March. We’d have to beg the EU for an extension. If they said no, we’d be humiliated. And if they said yes, they’d have us over a barrel, because the British public would The ballot paper could, therefore, offer yet another option: “Cancel Brexit”. It wouldn’t, obviously, because Brexiteers in Parliament would never allow it. But say they did. That would give voters a choice of four options – and it’s extremely unlikely that any one of the four would win a majority of votes. In fact, it would be possible for “Cancel Brexit” to win with as little as 26 per cent. Cue national meltdown. Almost three-quarters of people would have voted for Brexit – but because they were split between three incompatible approaches to it, we’d have to stay in the EU.already have ruled out the threat of “no deal”, and the Government would be getting desperate.