`Rebel Commander' Grieve's Case for Second Referendum on Brexit

(Bloomberg) -- The Conservative Brexit rebel who dealt Prime Minister Theresa May a parliamentary blow has a hypothetical argument for a second referendum, but he doesn’t want you thinking he sounds like Tony Blair.

Dominic Grieve is the 61-year-old former attorney general who embarrassed May’s government with his legal scrutiny of the mammoth piece of legislation to formally take Britain out of the European Union. He was a guest on the LBC Radio show, introduced by host Nick Ferrari as “serial rebel commander.”

He imagines there are circumstances that might justify giving voters the chance to rethink their decision: “Just suppose if by September, October next year opinion polls suggest (I have no reason to believe this is going to happen) that 80 percent of the population thought a mistake had been made and they wanted something other than leaving the EU.”

What is to be done then, he asks: “Does parliament say terribly sorry you made that decision in 2016 so forget about that, we’re off without a deal?”

“Or does parliament and government try to respond to that?” he said. “And this has always been the problem with a referendum. If people vote in an election a few years later they are entitled to change their mind, but referendums sort of have this seizing of something and turning it into stone. I think you have to be very careful about this.”

“We haven’t a clue what the long-term relationship between the U.K. and the EU is going to be,” he said. “I fear this is going to go on another five, six, seven years.”

His comments immediately invited comparisons to the former Labour leader -- “I don’t wish to particularly sound like Tony Blair.” That is partly because in Grieve’s opinion the now unpopular ex-premier brings little to the cause.

“His reputation is so damaged by a number of issues not really related to Brexit that I’m not sure he’s not in a position to make a very helpful contribution to this debate,” Grieve said. “It’s a hard thing to say but I think it’s the truth.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in London at fjackson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net, Flavia Krause-Jackson, Ben Sills

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