A second Brexit referendum is more likely than ever – even Philip Hammond says so

The chancellor has admitted that, if parliament cannot resolve Brexit, the people must decide – and he’s not too keen on a general election, which only leaves one option

Theresa May’s resignation has freed cabinet ministers to talk about what is likely to happen to Brexit, rather than having to stick to the script. Philip Hammond, the chancellor, told the Today programme this morning that “if parliament can’t resolve” Brexit then it might have to ask the people to decide in a second referendum.

Well, we know parliament can’t resolve Brexit, so Hammond is implying a new referendum is needed. “If parliament can’t resolve it, then parliament will have to decide how we remit it back to the people. Whether it is in the form of a general election or a second referendum,” he said, adding: “I’m not sure that a general election can resolve the question.”

That is a polite way of saying what the foreign secretary and leadership candidate Jeremy Hunt said bluntly last night to Robert Peston: “If we faced a general election before delivering Brexit we would be wiped out as a party, and that is I think something we must not think about doing, even for one second.”

Hunt cannot countenance a second referendum. Like the other leadership contenders, he knows it was May’s suggestion she might facilitate a Commons vote on a referendum that was the final straw that broke the back of her support among Tory MPs.

Hammond has the advantage of not being a candidate – he admitted he would be regarded by his colleagues as too “divisive” – and so he is liberated to suggest that a referendum might be unavoidable.

But he is not a mere commentator either. He is, for the moment, a senior member of the government, and when it comes to it he will have a vote as an MP. So when he says it, he carries even more weight than Daniel Finkelstein, the Tory peer and Times columnist, who argued yesterday that a new referendum was the “only option”.

It is worth noting that Huw Merriman, an MP who is Hammond’s parliamentary private secretary, said at the weekend he thought a new referendum was “inevitable”.

“I’d back Leave in that situation, and I don’t like it at all, but I’m just being realistic,” said Mr Merriman.

The argument for a referendum is shifting. It was, when The Independent started campaigning for it, that the people should have a “final say” on the terms of the withdrawal agreement. Now it is increasingly that there is no other satisfactory way of breaking the deadlock in parliament.

Many supporters of Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab argue the European Union will change the terms of the guarantee of an open Irish border if the UK threatens to walk away from talks. If the EU refuses, they are urging the new prime minister to suspend parliament until after the 31 October deadline, so it cannot prevent the UK leaving without a deal.

This is tinpot totalitarian talk. Some of those who are opposed to a no-deal Brexit, such as Nick Boles, the former Conservative-turned independent MP, are pessimistic about parliament’s ability to block such a suspension of democracy. But John Bercow, the speaker, has made it clear he would try to help backbench MPs if they tried to legislate to prevent such a thing.

So that leaves a further extension of the UK’s membership as the only immediate option in October. And, given that delaying Brexit forever is not an option, not least because there must be an election by May 2022, another referendum is becoming ever more likely.

It is about time MPs started discussing what the question would be.