I agree with asking for an extension of A50 but am not sure about a second vote.
Better to revoke Article 50.
Sorry Jane, not going to happen any time soon.
I have been opposed to a further referendum all along, for starters what question do you put to the people - that issue alone is likely to lead to just as much difficulty and disagreement as anything else in the Brexit debate.
And simply asking for an A50 extension is no good unless we have a plan which is likely to produce useful progress rather than more hot air.
Personally I think Brexit should be halted - this is not because I think that we should stay in the EU so much as I think Brexit itself is doing the nation harm - the retrenchment and tribalisation of political positions, the lack of consensus, acrimony and sheer mismanagement of the process are harming our businesses, harming our institutions and harming our national standing. How can we “regain our position on the world stage” when we are a laughing stock. How can we “take control of our trade” when within months we’ll be desperate to strike a deal with anyone who will entertain us. How will we “control our borders” when the price of agreements with India and China is likely to be more visa access.
We need not just to cancel Brexit but work to redress the issues in those parts of the country which are not “the south-east” - i.e most of it - which caused and continue to cause the dissatisfaction and disenfranchisement which lead to the leave vote in the first place - the biggest lie which the Leave campaign spun was that the EU was responsible for the state of the economy in the deprived areas of the UK. It is not and leaving won’t fix the problem - it will just hit those least able to withstand the downturn.
Sadly we are possessed of the most myopic, self-interested, unimaginative, inflexible and cowardly leaders for our two main parties that we have known in the modern era. It is not looking good.
(rant over) 
I agree. As JRM pointed out a while ago the actual effects of Brexit will not be obvious for a long time so it seems silly to rush into something that at best is a long term project. It’s far better to invest some time to deliver a manageable solution.
Agree but the public are fed up with the debate being acrimonious and drawn out and want it over - unfortunately they’ve been fed the will of the people line which means instead of accepting the fact that it is a difficult and divisive topic that needs time to reach consensus they think that “just getting on with it” is the best route forward. I acknowledge that it is certainly a route forward but anyone who thinks it will be an end to the matter is mistaken.
Britain’s politics is badly broken and I have wondered and continue to wonder if a no-deal exit is the necessary baptism of fire that we need to restore competent government but it will take years to recover.
Halting Brexit won’t solve anything.
That’s quite a statement. It wouldn’t solve everything but it would solve quite a lot. The same could be said of going ahead with any flavour of Brexit.
We have got ourselves in a right effing pickle then since no route forward is without serious problems.
What would it solve David?
It would hopefully prevent the damage that is going to be done when Britain discovers that it does not have the time for anything other than a no-deal Brexit or Mrs May’s deal which really doesn’t deliver anything that many of the leave voters voted for. There is no easy answer, taking stock of the situation seems a reasonable idea to me. Paul said halt, not stop.
Gramsci said: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born .
”
As David says in the short term it would prevent further damage to our economy.
However - and I suspect this is what you are getting at - the ERG and similarly minded folk would be apoplectic - perhaps even enough to whip up a popular revolt.
Medium term, however, it would need to be followed up by a sincere attempt at regeneration, not just papering over the cracks as previous governments have done and this is where I think we would fall down. Certainly with the present incumbents leading the Tories and Labour. At least May really is a dead woman walking now that she promised to go before the next GE (but what value we put in her promises I do not know).
No-deal would, of course put that regeneration back a decade if not more but perhaps the fact that the fall from the present order would affect the south east as well (due to the collapse of the services industry) it is possible that efforts to rebuild would have a better chance of being spread evenly across the nation - this won’t happen automatically though, it will require effort.
@anon88169868 tentatively proposes “a sincere attempt at regeneration”…
… and this, not being the first of Paul’s consistently sane impulses towards society’s holistic health, prompts this question:
Should we look to homeopathic princples to heal and regenerate the body politic, and what would that look like if we did?
Instead of overturning each other’s trays of amputation saws, tendon scissors, tongue-pulling forceps, mouth gags, and intestinal clamps. After turning off the operating theatre lights?
Paul meant stop not pause surely.
It’s actually a tricky one - we have never quite had our heart in the European project, more our head so how we develop our relationship with it is an ongoing legitimate point of debate.
I would say stop, until we have undone the harm we have already done ourselves and we have reached consensus on how to move forward - which could take some time.
The EU wouldn’t allow A50 to be paused, extended or revoked maybe but nothing else.
I’m not clear there is a difference between “paused” and “extended” with regard to the A50 process - both amount to the same thing and if the EU objected to the word “paused” I’m sure no-one would mind if we just used “extended” instead.
I obviously misunderstood, the UK have to ask the EU for a time limited extension but can revoke A50 on their own accord. The timing couldn’t be worse with the European Elections in May, Farage by default would still be an MEP after May if the A50 extension was longer than a month.