Appreciate the comments here, some points:
- the draft resolution confirming that the EU endorses the possibility of revocation is consistent with noises made by EU politicians well in advance of the A50 notification. Tusk said it very clearly back in October (1). At the same time there are no EU sources that I know of that have suggested otherwise.
- The 'deal or no deal' rhetoric underlines the disadvantage of the UK in coming to a deal in a fixed time frame. It is not underlining the impossibility of aborting the withdrawal. This is more about how the UK will not be able to draw out exit negotiations in its favour while holding the EU hostage. Revocation is an advantage to the EU because at the end of the day, keeping the UK in the EU is still going to be a better than any other scenario on the table - money talks and without the UK EU members have a lot of unwanted budgeting pressures to sort out.
> But they've gotten worse, not better, if this trend continues there is no way things will work out in favor of remain.
I think evaluating the comment sections of publications is a very poor way to assess public opinion for a variety of reasons. This is why we have properly conducted surveys and surveys show that pre-referendum attitudes have shifted.
In the aggregate people are more pessimistic about the economic future, even leave voters. In my prior link you will find that its trending very steadily in one direction. Remember that leave voters pre-referendum by and large were working under the premise that Brexit would not have any personal cost attached to it. Surveys taken before the referendum have illustrated this. Another attitude highlighted in surveys that show that when leave voters are prompted how much money they would be willing to surrender in order to accomplish Brexit's stated goals, most leave voters balk (2). True public support for hard brexit (under no deal or under no customs union + no single market membership) is not strong at all and projected to get weaker as pressure builds around the economy and continued cuts and public service failures.
> Public opinion is a dangerous thing to count on, that much should be clear from this whole exercise.
Which is exactly the point. A government is helped having public opinion on its side, I'm saying shifts in attitude are already undermining future support for the way the UK pursues Brexit. None of the stated benefits of Brexit are due to unfold in the next 5 years and that realisation is not going unnoticed. We know there's no additional 350 million for the NHS being budgeted. We know there will be no trade deal in 2 years. We know that immigration is not going to be artificially cut. Deals with India and the US are a very long way of and if they transpire, they likely won't be good deals.
And I would argue that public support for the Brexit pursued by the UK currently never was very strong, even at its peak. The 'leave' vote got a majority because it was able to group public support for incompatible goals. Now the public finds out that most of those goals, if any at all, will come to pass or turn out to be an illusion (such as the supposed increase in sovereignty) public opinion only has one way to go.
I'm more bullish on the odds of Brexit being aborted now than at any point before. I still think the odds are low, but they are much better than they were before. I know the British press is going to interpret A50 as being the nail in the coffin for EU membership, but it's not a difficult analysis to come to the contrary position:
The only thing that has been predictable so far is the government doing a poor job at preparation, execution and thinking steps ahead. Every step of the way it's making strategic, tactical mistakes and fumbling on policy. It's the one thing we can count on. The odds of a deal being done in 24 months are slim in part because of this. And if there is no deal in time, 650 MPs will have to think hard a simple choice: it can green light a national disaster brought onto it by itself, or it can intervene.
It was politically tough to oppose the A50 notification because it will be regarded as subverting a democratic result. Inside of 2 years time, it will be at least as politically damaging to not intervene in a national disaster. And MPs that have blessed the notification now can credibly oppose government performance on Brexit while being inoculated against the charge that they are subverting the will of an electorate.
What are the odds that the government negotiates a good deal or any deal at all? They are not that good at all, just given all the things that are outside the control of the UK. The momentous act of revoking the withdrawal - while unthinkable now - will look like the better option down the line. EU's history is full of members changing their minds. All it takes is for the UK government to be consistent with past performance and do a poor job at what is the toughest project it has ever undertaken since WW2. There are other plausible outcomes, but Brexit is nowhere near as avoidable as most think.
But let there be no mistake, this whole is a gigantic mess no matter how it unfolds.
1) http://blogs.ft.com/david-allen-green/2016/10/18/can-an-arti...
2) http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/hard-brexit-only-if...