Theresa May was wrong: a bad deal is far better than no deal. So sensible people should prefer Boris Johnson's new deal to the lunacy of no deal. But the right thing to do now is to give the public the choice they did not have in 2016, between defined alternatives. That is perfectly democratic. It is also wise: the public need to consent to what will be a very costly outcome.
Mr Johnson argues that the new deal should be ratified by parliament at once, in order to allow the country to move on to other priorities: the cost of living, the National Health Service, violent crime and the environment. This is twaddle. All these things and more - education, housing, infrastructure, defence, welfare and almost every aspect of taxation - have always been within the control of the UK. Nothing but incompetence prevented UK governments from tackling them effectively while the country was in the EU.
With the principal exception of immigration, leaving the EU will give the UK the illusion, not the reality, of greater control. Its ability to transform its opportunities in trade and other aspects of international commerce, which are where EU membership does indeed matter, will turn out to be negligible. The UK on its own is merely a big minnow, generating just 3 per cent of world output. Only as part of the EU does it have the clout needed for transformative international deals. Even then, these are hard to do with the big powers.
Far worse, leaving on Mr Johnson's terms is going to make the country substantially poorer than it would otherwise be. That is not only bad in itself. It is also going to reduce the resources available to any future government to deliver on domestic policy promises. Indeed, this is already the case. The latest Green Budget from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Citi argues that: "Gross domestic product is roughly 2.5-3.0 per cent (£55bn-£66bn) below where we think it would have been without Brexit." This is quite likely to be a permanent loss. It would imply an equally permanent reduction in fiscal revenue of a little over 1 per cent of GDP.
With this deal, which implies a very hard Brexit, things will get worse. A recent analysis, The economic impact of Boris Johnson's Brexit proposals, from The UK in a Changing Europe think-tank, concludes that, other things being equal, GDP per head could be between 5.8 and 7 per cent lower, in the long run, under Mr Johnson's deal compared to staying in the EU. This is even worse than the 5.5 per cent loss estimated under the May deal, although better than the 8.7 per cent loss under "WTO terms".
Such estimates are highly uncertain. But they are based on standard economic models and not on questionable assumptions about short-term macroeconomic behaviour. The component elements are the direct trade effects (a loss of 2.3 to 2.7 percentage points of GDP) and an induced effect on productivity, as the UK economy becomes less open to trade. The ranges are determined by the severity of controls on immigration.
The implied impact on future prosperity is dramatic. At present, a modestly optimistic assumption, given the UK's recent dire productivity performance, is that prospective GDP per head will rise at 1 per cent a year. If so, Mr Johnson's hard Brexit might reduce the total increase in GDP per head over a decade by between 50 and 70 per cent!
Fiscally, the UK would benefit from not having to continue its contributions to the EU. But the impact of reduced GDP growth would far more than offset this gain. The analysis concludes that, without the productivity adjustment, the long-term fiscal position would be worse by between 0.7 and 0.9 per cent of GDP and, with it, by between 1.9 and 2.2 per cent of GDP (£41bn-49bn in current prices). If so, this would severely curtail any government's ability to deliver in the areas Mr Johnson favours.
Nor, of course, is this all. In addition to the likely economic costs come the dire political ones, notably the radically increased likelihood of a break up of the UK and the painful separation from our closest neighbours and partners.
Yes, this deal is far better than no deal. But it is a terrible deal and also one that is far indeed from the "having our cake and eating it" promised by Mr Johnson in the referendum campaign. It is, simply, a monstrous act of national self harm. It is not good enough to let an exhausted parliament wave it through.
Despite all the obvious risks, the people should be asked whether this deal is what they truly want for their future and that of their children and children's children. The right thing to do is to put it to the people. They now know what choices lie in front of them and their country. If they choose this one knowingly, so be it.
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