With the PM’s withdrawal agreement shot down, but Britain still set to leave the EU on March 29, a new course of action is needed – and fast, writes Leeds University political scientist Victoria Honeyman.

As the clock ticks down to March 29 2019, all of the political manoeuvring, negotiating, arguing and fighting is coming to a peak. In the two and a half years since the 2016 EU referendum, views on both sides have hardened and agreement still seems as far away as it was the day after the referendum.

With Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement disliked by all sides, and voted down by an unprecedented majority in the House of Commons, everyone is wondering what can and should be done next?

While there are a number of options, some are more realistic than others. But in these turbulent times, it is impossible to conclusively rule any out. Here are some possibilities.

Present a new deal

Having seen her deal roundly rejected by parliament, the most obvious move for May might seem to be to go back to the EU to renegotiate. But the EU-27 have been clear from the day of the referendum result about what they were willing to offer. As the larger partner in the negotiations, and with a legal and political framework to protect, the EU could not rip up its own rules for one country. Indeed, the withdrawal agreement stretched the EU’s own red lines and they have repeatedly said that they could not, and would not, offer any more.

With the withdrawal agreement sunk, renegotiating with the EU along the same lines is a waste of time. The only type of renegotiation likely to have any chance of success is one where the larger issues, such as the customs union, are put back on the table. That seems to be something which May appears unwilling to do. It is hard to see how a new deal, without such renegotiation, would be any different to the old deal.

Cross-party talks

May has complained that while members of parliament have been very clear about what they won’t accept, they haven’t given any clear steer on what they will accept. That is undoubtedly true, largely because the House of Commons does not have a settled view of what the withdrawal agreement should look like or what the future relationship between the UK and EU should be.

In light of this, May has suggested that one way forward might be cross-party talks. But this is not an easy solution. May has enemies on all sides, with members of the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, SNP and DUP all offering different solutions to her problem. Few of them will agree with May’s existing red lines, or with each other, making agreement almost impossible.

Another issue is the lack of time, with less than 80 days before the UK leaves the EU. Were these discussions to have taken place after the 2017 election, or when May became prime minister, agreement might just have been possible – but at this late stage, and with May appearing to be unwilling to compromise in any meaningful way, cross-party agreement looks unattainable.

Extend Article 50

The lack of time is an issue for Remainers and Leavers alike. Negotiation, a general election, another referendum – these all take time and Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on March 29. The deadline for invoking Article 50 – the EU legislation that allows Britain to leave – could be extended, but this requires the agreement of the EU. In order for the UK to request this extension, and for the EU to agree, a practical plan of action would be needed to convince both sides that there was some point in an extension. While it is likely that an extension to Article 50 may be sought, it is just a delay, not a solution.

Second referendum

For many of the 48% who voted to remain in the EU, a second referendum could be the answer to their prayers. Key Leave figures are under investigation for alleged irregularities during the referendum campaign and the British public are a lot more knowledgeable about the European Union now than they were in 2016. Another referendum might deliver a death blow to Brexit. However, there is no guarantee that it would deliver a Remain vote, and a vote could create even more divisions within society. The possibility of a second referendum is increasingly likely, but is still a long way off.

No-deal Brexit

Of all the options, the only certainty is that if no further action is taken, no deals agreed, no referendum or general election, then the UK will leave the EU on March 29 with no deal. This would mean Britain would revert to trading on World Trade Organization rules. No other nation in the world trades exclusively on WTO rules and the economic damage would be extreme.

Delays at ports and the issue of the Northern Irish border would also be hugely divisive and damaging for the UK economy. Trade deals take time, often years, to negotiate so the pain would not be short term for Britain. With no realistic benefits for the UK, it is hard to see why anyone would pursue this as a positive option.

None of the options open to the UK government and parliament are particularly attractive – and all have long-term costs – but the usual practice is that when the parliament of the UK cannot make a decision, the issue is put back to the public. Whether that can realistically be done now is hard to tell, but no democracy should ever avoid the opinions of its own people.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The revelation in 2009 that Green MP Keith Locke had been spied on since age 11 caused an uproar and prompted an inquiry into SIS surveillance. Now, he writes, the SIS has been forced to apologise for calling him ‘a threat’ in internal documents.

Last April I received a letter from Rebecca Kitteridge, the director of the Security Intelligence Service, apologising for the way I was referred to in internal SIS documents. She wrote that I had been described as a “threat” in speaking notes for a Joint Induction Programme run by the SIS and the Government Communications Security Bureau since 2013.

In the SIS documents I was identified as an “internal” threat because I “wish[ed] to see the NZSIS & GCSB abolished or greatly modified”. The documents labelled this a “syndrome”.

In her apology, Kitteridge said “the talking point suggests wrongly that being a vocal critic of the agencies means you are a ‘threat’ or a ‘syndrome’. In fact, people who criticise the agencies publicly are exercising their right to freedom of expression and protest, which are rights we uphold, and are enshrined in the Intelligence and Security Act 2017.”

I haven’t gone public on this until now, but given the recent news about several other state agencies spying on people, I decided that what happened to me should be in the public domain.

In his December report, State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes described the state spying on critics of deep-sea oil drilling, like Greenpeace, “an affront to democracy”. Like Kitteridge in her letter of apology to me, Hughes said that it was “never acceptable for an agency to undertake targeted surveillance of a person just because they are lawfully exercising their democratic rights, including their right to freedom of expression, association and right to protest.”

Most disturbingly, many civil servants in the cases Hughes identified must have known about this illegal, anti-democratic surveillance without blowing a whistle on it. In my case, many SIS and GCSB officers must have heard me being identified as a “threat” without challenging it. How else could the disparaging reference to me have stayed in the officer training material for ten years. Kitteridge told me the “threat” label was carried over into the Joint Induction Programme speaking note from a “Protective Security Advice presentation (believed to have been developed in about 2008)” and “a historical security aide-memoire (believed to have been developed in 2012).”

To make matters worse, the ten year period when I was deemed to be a “threat” includes the last three years (2008-2011) of my 12 years as an Member of Parliament. It appears the SIS learnt nothing from the public controversy, in early 2009, when it was revealed that the SIS had a file on me, which they were updating during my time as an MP, with material going up to 2006. This resulted in an inquiry by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Paul Neazor, which found that “a sitting MP because of his or her function and standing [is] not generally a subject for intelligence collection or surveillance.” This in turn led to a Memorandum of Understanding between the Speaker, the SIS and the Minister in Charge of the SIS, signed off in 2012, endorsing the Inspector-General’s recommendations.

This MOU also had a section on “political neutrality” whereby the SIS “does not take any action for the purpose of furthering or harming the interests of a political party.” Clearly the SIS and GCSB were acting in a politically biased manner by treating my parliamentary critique of the intelligence agencies, delivered officially on behalf of the Green Party, as representing a “threat”.

It seemed pretty clear that the SIS had breached to MOU requirements for political neutrality, by treating a sitting MP and his views as a “threat”, so I wrote to the current Speaker, Trevor Mallard, about it. He didn’t think the MOU had “been breached in any way.” Mallard side-stepped my contention that the SIS had acted in a politically biased manner, but did admit that “certain materials being used by the security agencies contained inappropriate expressions of opinion regarding your conduct, including during a time that you were a member of Parliament.” He said he met regularly with the SIS Director “and will continue to ensure that she is aware of the need for security agencies to respect the role and independence of Parliament.”

I have to disagree with the Speaker that it was just a matter of the SIS using “inappropriate” language. For a spy agency to describe someone as a “threat” is serious. It identifies them as a target for some form of monitoring or surveillance, and this is what has happened to me over many years. When I got my SIS file, I found it ran for hundreds of pages, beginning in 1955 and ending in 2006. It is a case study in what is wrong with our intelligence agencies. No criminality is identified. I have no criminal record. The file is all about my legitimate political activities, mainly in international peace and justice campaigns (e.g. against apartheid and the Vietnam war), but also in the labour movement. My file illustrates the main function of the SIS over the years, which hasn’t been to track down criminals (which the Police do quite well) but to spy on political dissenters.