Thanks to Yvette Cooper, a no-deal Brexit will be taken off the table – a new referendum is back on the cards

If even the likes of Nigel Farage can countenance a Final Say then maybe the tide is turning

Although a specific amendment to back another, Final Say, referendum is not on the Commons’ agenda today, and was “pulled”, there is a clear path to a fresh democratic mandate on the terms of Brexit. It is a matter of timing.

Indeed, the good news for those keen on such a final say is that there are strong signs that a proposal now before parliament will, in more or less easy stages, lead, ineluctably, to exactly that so-called final say referendum. This is the amendment tabled by Labour MP Yvette Cooper and Tory Nick Boles to the main government motion. The effect is to delay Article 50. It is another step on the road.

Given that the Labour Party will now support it, this Cooper-Boles amendment seems like to pass, with decent cross-party support.

This would mean two things. First of all, it will require the government to request an extension to Article 50 if Theresa May cannot get a deal through the Commons by 26 February. She hasn’t so far, and, if the EU doesn’t budge again, she will not do so by then, either. That would be true even if she is given a new negotiating remit today, such as via the Brady amendment which tries to reverse the Irish backstop.

At that point, at the latest, in late February, only a month before the Brexit date, the whole process will have to suspended, by law, and the House will decide what kind of extension to Article 50 it wants. Either way, it rules out no deal on 29 March. Brexit is shelved, at least, and it will be obvious there is no support for that no deal kind of Brexit in the Commons. The PM’s threat of “my deal or no deal” will fall. Further options then open up.

The prime minister has said she will come back to the Commons by 13 February in any case, and will present an amendable motion on any deal, which will be another opportunity for MPs to rule out a no-deal Brexit, if needs be. Cabinet colleagues of the prime minister could use this as the opportunity to force the no deal free vote.

Thus, under the Cooper-Boles amendment, or even under the prime minister’s own timetable, the UK cannot then “crash out” without a deal on 29 March, and an extension becomes the only other alternative to a rejected May deal. It seems the likely extension would be for three months, but it could be longer if the Commons wanted a referendum, or was forced into it. Other amendments propose a two-year delay, for example.

However, it takes two to tango – Britain and Europe.

While the UK can revoke Article 50 unilaterally at any time, that would mean postponing Brexit, at least for now. There would be no majority in the Commons for that as such. Hence the alternative route of an extension.

Yet the UK can only have a pause or extension to Article 50 if all the other 27 members agree to grant it. And they have indicated that they would only do so for two reasons.

First, to allow for a little time for necessary legislation to win approval on an agreed deal. That does not seem likely, because there will be no deal to implement anyway, and no-deal Brexit has been outlawed.

Second, an extension can be granted if it is to give the UK time to hold a democratic vote on the eventual deal between the UK and the EU. Thus, any EU member state can veto the extension if it is just about the British arguing pointlessly among themselves and going round in circles for weeks and weeks longer. So we can’t do that.

The British government will by then have run out of options, as no-deal Brexit will have been ruled out, but nothing else agreed. Ruling out no deal effectively disarms Ms May from threatening her pro-European MPs (to use a crude expression) with that unthinkable no-deal Brexit. She is then at their mercy – but they would still not be able to impose their own ideas on Eurosceptic fellow MPs. There is no majority for anything.

In that case the government would need to consider either a second referendum or a general election.

An election has the great disadvantage that it would probably resolve nothing, sending back another hung parliament to go round in circles with a slightly altered cast.

That, then, leaves the second referendum as the “last man standing” in terms of Brexit options. It seems to be gaining support in unusual places, if the likes of Nigel Farage can say, as he has on Twitter: “This is about our independence. It’s better to vote down May’s terrible deal and run the risk of a second referendum.” He's since said there’s no appetite for it in parliament, but he seems game enough, and quite right too. The options do seem to be narrowing.