Proposed referendum on the Brexit withdrawal agreement

A referendum on the Brexit withdrawal agreement, also referred to as a "second referendum" or a "people's vote", has been proposed by a number of politicians and pressure groups as a way to break the deadlock in Parliament surrounding the meaningful vote on the Brexit deal.

Following the invocation of Article 50 to begin Brexit negotiations, most proposals for a new referendum have suggested a choice between accepting the negotiated withdrawal agreement and remaining in the EU, sometimes with the additional option to leave the EU with no deal. In the case of a three-option referendum, voting systems such as supplementary vote, and Borda count have been suggested to allow people to state their second preferences.

Reasons which have been cited as justification include campaign finance violations by Vote Leave and Leave.EU, alleged use of data illicitly harvested by Cambridge Analytica, revelations of Russian interference through fake social media accounts and allegedly through funding, arguments that the "Leave" camp promoted misinformation, a gradual shift in public opinion, fuelled in part by demographic changes such as young people gaining the right to vote, and that the eventually arranged terms of Brexit were unknown at the time of the original vote.

The most widely discussed proposal has been a referendum between "Remain" and "Accept the deal", promoted by the People's Vote pressure group. As of August 2019, this is the official position of the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party of England and Wales, Plaid Cymru and Change UK. The Labour Party also adopted this position in September 2019, while the Scottish National Party has voted in Parliament in favour of a second vote. The Conservative Party are opposed to any referendum.

History

A few weeks after the referendum, an e-petition originally set up beforehand on 25 May 2016 by a member of the Leave-supporting English Democrats demanding it be re-run in the event that a supermajority was not reached became the most popular petition on the site, receiving 4,150,262 signatures. On 5 September 2016, the petition received a non-binding debate by MPs in the Grand Committee Room of Parliament's Westminster Hall but its proposal was rejected.

The Liberal Democrats and Green Party went into the 2017 United Kingdom general election campaigning in favour of a second referendum, and a minority of pro-European rebels from Labour and the Conservatives also spoke in favour of it. These allied in April 2018 into the People's Vote campaign group. After several cabinet ministers resigned in protest at the Chequers statement setting out the Government's position in the Brexit negotiations, Conservative MP Justine Greening proposed a three-way referendum, using the supplementary vote system in an attempt to avoid vote splitting.

The leader of the Trades Union Congress, which is closely allied with Labour, said at its 2018 conference that it would declare in favour of a second referendum if the government failed to get "the deal that working people need". On 25 September 2018, delegates at the Labour party conference voted in favour of a motion that if Labour did not support Theresa May's deal, and if subsequent attempts to call another general election failed, the party should explore all options, including a second referendum. Some observers saw those conditions as fulfilled by the defeat of the meaningful vote on the 15 January 2019 and the vote of no confidence in May held the following day. However, the Labour leadership did not make any commitments to a referendum at that time. In early December 2018, the Financial Times reported that Leave groups had also started preparing for another referendum.

On 18 February 2019, seven pro-European MPs resigned from the Labour Party to form The Independent Group (TIG). Over the following days, another Labour MP and three Conservative Party MPs joined them. All eleven support a referendum.

The following week, the Labour Party announced that it would put forward its own second referendum amendment if its attempts to safeguard workers' rights, Single Market access and Customs Union membership fails.

In September 2019, the Labour Party adopted the position of holding a public vote on whether to leave or remain regardless of which party negotiated the withdrawal agreement.

Parliamentary votes

The proposal for a referendum on the withdrawal agreement was first put to Parliament on 14 March 2019 in an amendment (tabled by Sarah Wollaston) to the motion to request the first extension to the Article 50 deadline, where it was rejected by 85–334, with the Labour Party (and all but 43 of its MPs) abstaining.

On 27 March and 1 April 2019, a series of indicative votes was held, both times including a referendum on the withdrawal agreement among the proposals. All proposals failed, with those for such a referendum receiving in the first round 268 Ayes, 295 Noes and 71 abstentions (a majority of 27) and in the second round 280 Ayes, 292 Noes and 62 abstentions (a majority of 12). In both rounds, it was the proposal second-closest to receiving an affirmative majority.

Opinion polling

Main article: Opinion polling on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union (2016–present)

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With "Neither" responses

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Normalised

Opinion polling (since the 2016 referendum) on whether the UK should leave or remain in the EU

  Leave

  Remain

Polling companies have asked questions based on a hypothetical future referendum since the 2016 referendum. For most of 2016 and 2017, public opinion was consistently against another referendum and in the event one was called, polling suggested the Leave option would win again. As Brexit negotiations continued however, the Leave lead consistently slipped and public support for another referendum grew. As of February 2019, no poll in the Britain Elects poll-tracker has shown a lead for Leave since April 2018, and political scientist John Curtice has noted "a modest but discernible softening of the Leave vote".

The results of polls asking whether a further referendum should be held vary depending on how the question is phrased: in general a "second referendum" is less popular than a "public vote" or similar descriptor.

After the scale of Conservative rebellion to the Chequers statement became clear, some polls asked a three-way preference between "Remain", "Deal" and "No deal". The results in this case depend to a great degree on the choice of voting system – a first-past-the-post system for example might see a large Remain win due to vote splitting between the two Leave options.

Support for a future referendum

The following table shows the support for a public vote on the withdrawal agreement or a second EU referendum according to polls conducted since the 2016 referendum. Template:Brexit/Post-referendum opinion polling: Second Referendum Support

Advocates

Political parties

• Labour Party
• Liberal Democrats
• Green Party
• Scottish National Party
• Change UK
• Plaid Cymru
• Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
• SDLP

Members of Parliament

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Labour Party

Labour Party MPs advocating a referendum on the proposed withdrawal agreement
Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Opposition Tom Watson, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Keir Starmer, Shadow Brexit Secretary

Independent

Independent MPs advocating a referendum on the proposed withdrawal agreement
Guto Bebb