DEAR Twenty-seven.

We get it. You are fed up with the chronic indecision of Brexit Britain. Like that cat scratching at the door to get out, but refusing to leave when it is finally opened. It would be understandable if you said enough is enough, reached for the broom, and shooed the recalcitrant feline out the No Deal door sometime in late June. But wait. There is every reason to extend Article 50 for as long as it takes.

The Herald:

Scotland voted, as you know, to remain in the European Union, and while Scots may be numerically outnumbered, we have a direct interest in preventing a crash-out from Europe, the better to campaign for a crash back in. Were there a referendum tomorrow, you can be sure that Scotland would vote Revoke. And there are signs that England is catching up. Public opinion in the UK has been swinging slowly but surely in favour of Remain. This needs time to mature.

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Many in the UK are hoping that the European elections, in which the UK Government may have to participate, will be an opportunity to have the informed debate about Brexit which has been lacking for the last three years. It is regrettable that Theresa May persevered with facile slogans like “Brexit means Brexit” for so long. But even she is realising that a 52 per cent to 48 per cent vote was no legitimate basis for hard Brexit. We know this only too well in Scotland. In the 1979 devolution referendum, Yes won by the same margin, but Westminster rejected the result on the grounds that even this modest constitutional reform required a stronger mandate.

There have been inconclusive discussions between Mrs May and Jeremy Corbyn on some sort of compromise involving membership of a customs union. This may seem like a sign of progress, and in one sense it is. However, the proposal is opposed by many MPs in Westminster, and by even more voters in the world outside Westminster. This is because the customs union option is, in many respects, the worst of both worlds.

A customs union covers only trade in goods, while 80 per cent of the UK economy is services. The UK cannot negotiate its own trade deals, which was the raison d’etre of Brexit. Indeed, the more people look at the proposal the more it antagonises both Remainer and Brexiter alike. It would be folly to rush into this half-baked option, which neither Labour nor the Tories can convincingly support in parliament.

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You are understandably worried about the rise of populism across the EU. Italy is going rogue; Greece is in sullen remission; central European countries are flirting with authoritarianism. All the more reason to keep Britain in the fold. There are those who would tell you that Brexit Britain is lurching towards some kind of soft-shoe fascism, but this is a misrepresentation. Politically speaking, the far right is practically non-existent in the UK. Attitudes to immigration have changed markedly in the last five years. According to the polling organisation Ipsos Mori, Britain is now the country most favourably disposed towards migrants in the OECD. Yes, we know that both Mrs May and Mrs Corbyn seem to believe that ending freedom of movement is the Brexit bottom line – but they are behind the times. The whole Brexit immigration case was bogus, and voters are beginning to realise this.

The UK’s plight has been the best recruiting sergeant the European Union has had in decades. Those who believed that membership was about yielding sovereignty to some remote Brussels super-state can now see how foolish that proposition was.

There is no such thing as pure, untrammelled sovereignty in a complex world dominated by trading blocs of immense size and wealth. Free trade itself requires a diminution of sovereignty – even under the World Trade Organisation. This is because everyone has to obey the rules, or the whole enterprise falls apart

The EU was systematically misrepresented by reactionary Conservatives like Boris Johnson, who claimed it was the completion of the aims of the Napoleon and Hitler “by different methods”. Wistful post-imperial longing for a revival of what civil servants dubbed “British Empire 2.0” , based on the old Commonwealth, has been exposed for the nonsense that it always was. The architect of the new “anglosphere” trading zone, Liam Fox, has struck deals with only seven of the 69 countries covered by EU arrangements.

What is now blindingly obvious, even to Brexit Tories like the Daily Mail commentator Peter Oborne, is that the one trade deal we can’t do without is with our biggest trading partner: Europe. As someone once said: there is no alternative. Even after No Deal, trade talks would have to resume sooner or later.

The deadlock in Parliament may seem inexplicable from a European point of view, where coalition is the norm and legislatures tend to be elected on proportional representation. Only now has it become clear to our stubborn and narrow-minded Prime Minister that she can only succeed in Brexit if there is cross-party agreement.

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There is nothing to be gained by forcing the UK to accept No Deal on Friday, or even in the subsequent weeks or months. The UK needs to take a long hard look at itself, and decide where its real interests lie. We realise that we have become a laughing stock across Europe. The European elections will be the first opportunity for the UK electorate to register its assessment of the conduct of the Brexit process. It could indeed turn into a de facto referendum on Brexit.

At any rate, there is no avoiding these elections now. Thereafter, the UK needs at least a year in which to absorb the magnitude of this self-imposed crisis. Britain will keep up its payments to the EU Budget in the meantime, and EU citizens will be secure.

Yes, you will be accused of kicking the can down the road. But that is better than no can at all – and it could be a very, very long road.

Yours sincerely,

Scotland.