Theresa May suffers historic defeat in vote as Tories turn
against her
PM faces vote of confidence after MPs reject her Brexit plan
by majority of 230
Heather Stewart and Daniel Boffey
Wed 16 Jan 2019 07.23 GMT First published on Tue 15 Jan 2019
22.28 GMT
Theresa May has pledged to face down a vote of no confidence
in her government, after her Brexit deal was shot down by MPs in the heaviest
parliamentary defeat of the democratic era.
On a day of extraordinary drama at Westminster, the House of
Commons delivered a devastating verdict on the prime minister’s deal, voting
against it by 432 to 202.
The scale of defeat, by a majority of 230, was greater than
any seen in the past century, with ardent Brexiters such as Jacob Rees-Mogg and
Boris Johnson walking through a packed division lobby cheek-by-jowl alongside
passionate remainers.
As noisy protesters from both sides of the Brexit divide
massed outside in Parliament Square, the prime minister immediately rose to
accept the verdict of MPs – saying she would welcome a vote of no confidence in
the government.
“The house has spoken and the government will listen,” she
said. “It is clear that the house does not support this deal, but tonight’s
vote tells us nothing about what it does support.”
In a raucous Commons, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn,
confirmed he had tabled a formal motion of confidence in the government, backed
by other opposition leaders, which MPs would vote on on Wednesday.
Corbyn told MPs: “This is a catastrophic defeat. The house
has delivered its verdict on her deal. Delay and denial has reached the end of
the line.”
The Brexit-backing European Research Group (ERG) and the
Democratic Unionist party (DUP) later announced that they would support the
prime minister, making it unlikely Labour could succeed in triggering a general
election.
May said that if she survived the vote on Wednesday, she
would hold meetings with senior parliamentarians from all parties to “identify
what would be required to secure the backing of the house”.
The prime minister’s spokesman later said May would be
contacting Conservative and DUP MPs among others , but declined to say whether
or not she would meet with Corbyn or the SNP leader, Ian Blackford.
He cited the example of May’s meetings with Labour MPs such
as Caroline Flint and Gareth Snell about an amendment on workers’ rights, although
both of those MPs eventually voted against the government. “We will approach it
in a constructive spirit,” the spokesman said.
May had no plans to head to Brussels immediately, No 10
said, implying that the prime minister first needed to test what would be
acceptable to MPs.
Downing Street said May would approach the talks wanting to
find a solution to deliver a Brexit deal that would honour the result of the
referendum – suggesting she would not countenance talks with those pushing for
a second referendum, or even a full customs union, which Labour has backed.
She would then make a statement on Monday, setting out how
she intended to proceed. MPs would get the chance to amend the statement, and
were likely to take the opportunity to try to demonstrate support for their own
favoured alternatives – including a Norway-style soft Brexit, and a second
referendum.
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Several cabinet ministers, including Amber Rudd, Philip
Hammond and Greg Clark, had pressed the prime minister at Tuesday’s cabinet
meeting to pursue a cross-party solution if her deal was defeated. But
Brexit-backing ministers, including Andrea Leadsom and Penny Mordaunt, urged
her instead to seek revisions to the Irish backstop – and failing that, to
pursue a “managed no deal”.
The former foreign secretary Boris Johnson said the crushing
defeat gave the prime minister a “massive mandate” to return to Brussels and
seek a better deal.
“We should not only be keeping the good bits of the deal,
getting rid of the backstop, but we should also be actively preparing for no
deal with ever more enthusiasm,” he said.
On Tuesday night Johnson was joined by other prominent
Brexiter MPs, including John Redwood and Bill Cash, at a champagne celebration
party at Rees-Mogg’s house.
Hammond moved quickly after the vote to quell business anger
over the failure of May to get her deal ratified. The chancellor expressed his
“disappointment” at the result in a conference call at 9pm with main business
groups, including the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce, as well as
dozens of chief executives.
One source on the call said it was constructive and that
Hammond’s tone was “realistic” about the damage prolonged uncertainty around
Brexit was inflicting on the economy. However, Hammond was hammered by business
leaders over parliament’s refusal to take a no-deal Brexit off the table. “This
was the single biggest question he was asked,” said the source.
The Guardian view on May’s Brexit deal: it’s over, but
what’s next?
Read more
May said any plan that emerged from the talks would have to
be “negotiable” with the EU27. She earlier rejected an amendment from the Tory
backbencher Edward Leigh calling for the Irish backstop to be temporary, saying
it was not compatible with the UK’s legal obligations.
In Brussels, Donald Tusk, the European council president,
appeared to back a second referendum soon after the crushing result for the
prime minister was announced, and urged her to offer a way forward.
Donald Tusk
✔
@eucopresident
If a deal is
impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to
say what the only positive solution is?
61.6K
8:40 PM - Jan 15, 2019
May was expected to return to Brussels within days to
consult with Tusk and the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker.
Officials said the EU was now in listening mode.
In a statement, Juncker urged the British government to
“clarify its intentions as soon as possible”, and warned that “time is almost
up”.
“I take note with regret the outcome of the vote in the
House of Commons this evening”, he said. “On the EU side, the process of
ratification of the withdrawal agreement continues”.
In a defence of Brussels’ role in the negotiations, Juncker
said that the EU and the bloc’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, had shown
“creativity and flexibility throughout” and “demonstrated goodwill again by
offering additional clarifications and reassurances” in recent days.
He said: “The risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United
Kingdom has increased with this evening’s vote. While we do not want this to
happen, the European commission will continue its contingency work to help
ensure the EU is fully prepared.”
May, in Westminster earlier knowing that she faced a heavy
defeat, made a heartfelt plea to MPs to support her, calling it “the most
significant vote that any of us will ever be part of in our political careers”.
“Together we can show the people we serve that their voices
have been heard, that their trust was not misplaced,” she said.
Earlier in the day, as one Conservative backbencher after
another stood up to attack her painstakingly negotiated withdrawal agreement in
the House of Commons, it became clear that few had changed their mind.
May had embarked on a last-ditch charm offensive on Tuesday,
holding meetings with MPs including the ERG’s Steve Baker, who said the pair
had held a “constructive and substantial conversation about the future”.
Corbyn, speaking just before the vote , saidMay had “treated
Brexit as a matter for the Conservative party, rather than the good of the
whole country”.
He called the government’s efforts to steer Brexit through
parliament “one of the most chaotic and extraordinary parliamentary processes”
he had experienced in 35 years as an MP. The attorney general, Geoffrey Cox,
told his colleagues that if they did not accept the prime minister’s deal, they
risked condemning the UK to the chaos of a no-deal Brexit.
“It would be the height of irresponsibility for any
legislator to contemplate with equanimity such a situation,” he said.
Corbyn would come under intense pressure to throw his weight
behind a second Brexit referendum if May wins on Wednesday; but his spokesman
said Labour did not rule out tabling another no-confidence motion at a later
stage.
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| Imagem de OVOODOCORVO |
After this staggering defeat for May, our country is left
lost and adrift
Jonathan Freedland
The prime minister’s catalogue of errors led us to this
point. Now we face paralysis and humiliation
@Freedland
Tue 15 Jan 2019 20.39 GMT Last modified on Wed 16 Jan 2019
08.27 GMT
This was a defeat on a scale without precedent in the era of
universal suffrage, a rebuff more humiliating than any endured even by Ramsay
MacDonald in 1924. Some 118 Conservatives voted against the signature policy of
their own party tonight, thereby triggering a motion of no confidence that, in
any normal era, would see the government toppled within hours.
But such are these extraordinary times, that is not even the
most significant story from tonight. What matters more than the fate of this
government or this prime minister is the fate of the country and its decision
to leave the European Union, which is now suspended in a state of limbo if not
purgatory. The law says Britain will leave the EU in 70-odd days. Yet tonight
it has rejected the only firm exit path that exists. It means that, unless
something changes and MPs can reach an agreement with each other, Britain will
crash out of the EU on 29 March without a deal – an outcome all but the most
wild-eyed Brexiteers regard as an economic and social catastrophe for these
islands.
The question everyone wants answered is what happens now.
There’ll be a no-confidence vote tomorrow which, given the promised support of
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists and the hardcore Brexit group around
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the government seems set to win, despite everything. Then
Theresa May pledges to talk to “senior parliamentarians” of other parties to
hear what they need in order to back her. But, speaking after the defeat, her
spokesman suggested her Brexit red lines had not blurred and were not about to.
Which makes it hard to see how any progress, let alone a breakthrough, is even
conceivable.
So how did it come to this? What led May, parliament and the
country to this moment?
The answer you give will depend on how far back you want to
go. You could look to the snap election of 2017, when May threw away her
majority, thereby leaving her at the mercy of a hung parliament, where Brexit
lacked a majority just as surely as she did. As a simple matter of arithmetic,
the defeat tonight was foretold on the night of 8 June 2017.
Jeremy Corbyn tables no-confidence motion after May defeat –
as it happened
Read more
Or you might go back a few months earlier, to the triggering
of article 50, which started the clock ticking on a negotiation for which May
was palpably not ready. The cabinet was too split between leavers and remainers
to know its own mind. Only in the last few months of the two-year period did
the UK have anything like a position.
Or you might say the die was cast much earlier, soon after
May became prime minister and painted herself into a corner with a series of
bright red lines. Once she had committed to leave the single market, customs
union and jurisdiction of the European court of justice, and once she accepted
that there could be no hard border in Ireland, then she had all but written the
withdrawal agreement that MPs rejected tonight. The EU laws of physics dictated
that there could be almost no other outcome.
Of course, May’s drawing of those red lines was itself the
fruit of another choice, a political calculation that her best hope lay with
placating the hardest Brexiteers in her party. She had seen how the Europhobic
wing of British Conservatism had devoured so many of her predecessors, and
concluded that her own safety required her to placate that faction. Only later
did she learn what her predecessors could have told her: that the Europhobes’
demands can never be met because what they want – cake in both its having and
eating modes – is impossible.
This has been
Britain’s European story, repeatedly seeing what was a project of peace as a
scam designed to swindle the Brits of their money
In this she was repeating an error made by David Cameron in
2013, when he announced that there would be an in/out referendum before 2017.
He, too, was seeking to placate the hard Brexiteers, seeking to blunt the
appeal of Ukip. That was another fateful decision on the road to the vote
tonight, one that failed to see that asking voters to approve the status quo in
the post-crash era was asking to be punched hard in the face. Critical, too,
was Cameron’s conduct of the referendum campaign, with its serial failures: its
appeal to voters’ wallets rather than their hearts, its refusal to attack the
Tory leaders of the leave campaign, its complacency.
But Cameron also deserves blame for the manner of his
departure. Had he delayed his resignation, he could have been around to frame
what the referendum result meant. He could have said, for example, that Britons
had voted to leave the EU but had not voted to leave either the single market
or customs union, since neither were on the ballot paper. Britons clearly
wanted out of the EU’s political institutions, he might have said, but they had
not rejected membership of the common market. And so he could have advanced a
Norway-style Brexit, one that would have minimised the harm. Instead he fled
the scene of his own crime, leaving a vacuum into which rival definitions of
Brexit could rush. Within weeks of his exit, Brexit was redefined in the
hardest terms.
All these decisions by May and Cameron laid the path to the
vote tonight. But, in truth, the path is much longer and older. For at least
three decades, “Europe” served as the all-purpose bogeyman of British politics.
Cheered on by a Europe‑loathing press, itself fuelled by an endless flow of
straight banana-type lies, many of them concocted by a Telegraph correspondent
in Brussels by the name of Boris Johnson, politicians of all stripes found it
convenient to blame Brussels for any and all ills.
How easy it was for British politicians to say they’d love
to act on this or that issue, but their hands were tied by those villains in
the EU. Every summit was a “showdown” pitting plucky Britain against the wicked
continentals. Both of the main political parties played this game. Recall
Gordon Brown’s reluctance to be photographed signing the Lisbon treaty. (In the
end he signed the treaty in a small room, alone – an early metaphor for the
Brexit to come.) Given how long, and how bitterly, the fight against Europe had
been fought, what’s remarkable is not how few Britons voted remain in 2016 but
how many.
Or you could go further back still. The Suez fiasco of 1956
was meant to have cured Britain of its imperial delusion, but what’s clear now
is that many Britons never quite made that adjustment. Underpinning Brexit,
with its belief that Britain should separate itself from its closest
neighbours, is a refusal to accept that we are one part of an interdependent
European economy. For the Brexiteers, Britain remains a global Gulliver tied
down for too long by the Lilliputians of Little Europe. It is a fundamental
misreading of our place in the world.
Perhaps, though, the seeds of the vote were planted in the
rubble of Britain’s wartime experience. Never occupied, many Britons never
understood the intense need for the EU as continental Europeans feel it. In
1984, at a ceremony to honour the fallen of Verdun, François Mitterrand and
Helmut Kohl held hands, in a powerful gesture of Franco-German reconciliation.
According to her biographer, Margaret Thatcher was unmoved, instead mocking the
sight of two grown men holding hands.
This has been Britain’s European story, repeatedly seeing
what was a project of peace, designed to end centuries of bloodshed, as a scam
designed to swindle the Brits of their money. You can go further back, to
repeated wars against the French, the Spanish and the Germans. Or you can go
further back still to the first Brexit nearly five centuries ago, when Henry
VIII sought to take back control by breaking from Rome.
Wherever you choose the starting point, the end point is
clear enough. It ends like this, in the sight of a parliament paralysed by
indecision, still unable to embrace Europe – but just as unable to break away.
And in the spectacle of a country lost and adrift.
• Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
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| Imagem de OVOODOCORVO |
British politics goes over a cliff
Despite the defeat of historic proportions, the prime
minister’s aides intend to resuscitate the Brexit deal.
By TOM
MCTAGUE 1/16/19, 2:08 AM CET
Updated 1/16/19, 8:31 AM CET
Should May survive the attempt Wednesday to force a general
election, she finds herself in a race against time to find a compromise package
negotiable with Brussels | Leon Neal/Getty Images
LONDON — British politics is broken. It may not be fixable
in time to solve the Brexit mess.
The U.K. wakes up Wednesday with a government unable to
govern — in office, but without the numbers to fulfill its central purpose: a
negotiated exit from the European Union.
A defeat of previously unimaginable proportions Tuesday —
432 to 202 — has left the country adrift, floating towards no deal, with no
party or faction in parliament able to command a majority for any way of moving
off the course it has set for itself. The only thing MPs can agree strongly on
is a desire to avoid an economically damaging no deal, but they currently can't
settle on a mechanism for how to do so.
Faced with disaster, Theresa May has a plan but no strategy
— the Churchillian maxim, “Keep Buggering On.”
“KBO prime minister, KBO,” one loyal government minister
urged her Tuesday in the House of Commons in the run up to the vote she knew
she was going to lose. May smiled and nodded in agreement. Right now, it is all
she’s got.
Drinkers watch Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speak in
the Houses of Parliament | Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images
May’s aides are clear: She is not giving up on her deal,
despite the scale of the defeat. And she’s not quitting.
The game is now an even more intense fight for survival from
one day to the next in the hope that something — anything — changes, but with
little hope that it will.
Britain is now entering a period of rolling, daily crises
with no obvious way out, its political class unable — or unwilling — to reach a
compromise way to leave the European Union. Remainers and Brexiteers alike are
convinced that voting against the prime minister’s Withdrawal Agreement takes
them closer to their own desired outcome.
One side is making a miscalculation of historic proportions.
No confidence
The rolling crisis kicks off with a bang Wednesday with a
vote of no confidence in the government, which if successful will trigger a
general election if no alternative government can be found within 14 days.
Despite shouts of “resign” from MPs Tuesday, however, May
made clear she has no intention of quitting. Instead she intends to fight to
stay in power. “KBO.”
Should she survive the vote, which will take place at 7 p.m.
Wednesday — and every indication is that she will — May will find herself back
in the same trap of her own making: a prime minister without power.
Out of the mess, however, two things did change Tuesday
night, which MPs believe signal the direction of travel May now intends to take
to avoid Britain leaving the European Union without a deal on March 29.
In her statement to parliament after the crushing result of
the vote was announced, for the first time May formally reached out to leading
opposition MPs.
“It is clear that the House does not support this deal,” May
told MPs. “But tonight’s vote tells us nothing about what it does support.
Nothing about how — or even if — it intends to honor the decision the British
people took in a referendum parliament decided to hold.”
The fury among MPs is that it has taken this long to reach
this point.
May said if she survived Wednesday's attempt to force her
government from power, she would work to find a compromise “genuinely
negotiable” with Brussels.
In other words, unless the Brexiteers revise their
expectations, May will be forced to look to Labour for compromises.
If a compromise can be found, May will take it to Brussels.
In a briefing to journalists Tuesday night, May’s spokesman said the government
would table a motion on its next steps on Monday next week before holding a
vote on this new plan “quickly” afterwards — likely sometime that week.
The fury among MPs is that it has taken this long to reach
this point.
Former No. 10 policy chief George Freeman, who reluctantly
backed the deal, said the only way from here was to a softer Brexit. “Tonight
the hardline Brexiteers think they have made no deal more likely, but actually
what they have done is make no Brexit more likely or a much softer Brexit. You
couldn’t make it up.”
"People's Vote" supporters dance and listen to
speeches during a demonstration in Parliament Square on January 15 | Dan
Kitwood/Getty Images
However, he cast doubt on whether May was able to build a
compromise deal with Labour. "The real question,” he said, was “is [Theresa
May] able and really willing to reach out and do what for two and a half years
she has absolutely refused to do, which is build a cross-party consensus. And
will they trust her to do that?”
The second big change announced by May Tuesday is that “no
deal is better than a bad deal” has all but disappeared as government policy.
Instead, May told MPs voters did not vote for no deal because they had been
told an agreement would be easy to reach with Brussels.
Should May survive Wednesday's attempt to force a general
election, she finds herself in a race against time to find a compromise package
negotiable with Brussels.
Brussels also wants to know what might command a majority in
parliament. “I want to know what kind of deal the House of Commons really
wants,” the European Parliament's Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt asked.
"I urge the United Kingdom to clarify its intentions as
soon as possible. Time is almost up” — European Commission President Jean-Claude
Juncker
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker also
called for clarity. "I urge the United Kingdom to clarify its intentions
as soon as possible. Time is almost up,” he said.
Donald Tusk, the European Council leader, appeared to call
for Brexit to be abandoned altogether. “If a deal is impossible, and no one
wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only
positive solution is?” he said.
In Westminster, a lot more is now in play.
May’s spokesman said the prime minister could work with
Labour MPs to bulk up guarantees on workers’ rights, as well as those across
the House who wanted to find a way to rule out no deal.
British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves the Houses of
Parliament after MPs voted against the government's Brexit deal | Ben
Stansall/AFP via Getty Images
“We want to leave with a deal and will work with others who
share that,” the spokesman said.
Behind the scenes, the government is weighing even more
radical options. One idea floated by an influential government minister was to
offer MPs a free vote — freeing MPs from voting on party lines. The idea is to
bust open the party-political system to allow Labour MPs to back the deal. The
Tory minister who spoke to POLITICO said Labour would feel compelled to follow
the Tories if they gave their MPs a free vote, though Corbyn may have other
ideas.
Despite the conciliatory tone, May’s advisers said the
“principles” behind the government’s negotiating strategy would not be
bargained away. The government wants to avoid no deal, while also guaranteeing
an independent trade policy and U.K. control over its “money, borders and
laws.”
May’s aides also said she was still determined to leave on
March 29.
Talks with opposition MPs will begin Thursday, the aides said.
Despite the scale of the defeat Tuesday, May and her most
senior Cabinet colleagues and advisers appear to believe it can be
resuscitated.
A motion will then be tabled Monday setting out the
government’s next steps. This motion will be amendable, giving MPs the chance
to test out alternative options, from a second referendum, super-soft
“Norway”-style exit or a permanent customs union. Right now, none appears to
have majority support in the House of Commons.
Despite the scale of the defeat Tuesday — which Labour said
had left the proposed exit deal “dead” — May and her most senior Cabinet
colleagues and advisers appear to believe it can be resuscitated.
In the House of Commons before the vote, Attorney General
Geoffrey Cox told MPs: “This Withdrawal Agreement will have to return in much
the same form, with much the same content. Therefore, there is no serious or
credible objection that has been advanced by any party to the Withdrawal
Agreement.”
May wrapped up her remarks after the defeat with a promise
to voters that she had not given up. “The government has heard what the House
has said tonight, but I ask members on all sides of the House to listen to the
British people, who want this issue settled, and to work with the government to
do just that.”
In other words: May is buggering on.
This article is from POLITICO Pro: POLITICO’s premium policy
service. To discover why thousands of professionals rely on Pro every day,
email pro@politico.eu for a complimentary trial.
“Nunca o risco de um não acordo pareceu tão elevado”, alerta
negociador da UE para o Brexit
Vasco Gandra, em Bruxelas
9:11
"Nenhum cenário pode ser excluído", incluindo,
"o de um não acordo". "Hoje, a dez semanas, nunca o risco de um
não acordo pareceu tão elevado", alerta Michel Barnier no Parlamento
Europeu.
Com o processo do Brexit mergulhado numa total incerteza
após o chumbo do acordo no Parlamento britânico, o chefe da equipa de
negociadores da União Europeia, Michel Barnier, deixa esta quarta-feira o
alerta: “Nunca o risco de um não acordo pareceu tão elevado”.
No dia seguinte ao voto histórico nos Comuns, Michel Barnier
participou esta manhã num debate sobre o Brexit na sessão plenária do
Parlamento Europeu, em Estrasburgo.
“No momento em que vos falo nenhum cenário pode ser
excluído, isso é sobretudo verdade em relação ao cenário que sempre quisemos
evitar, o de um não acordo. Hoje é 16 de janeiro, estamos a dez semanas apenas
do fim do mês de março. Ou seja, do momento escolhido pelo Governo britânico
para se tornar um país terceiro. E hoje, a dez semanas, nunca o risco de um não
acordo pareceu tão elevado”, afirmou o francês.
No momento em que vos falo nenhum cenário pode ser excluído,
isso é sobretudo verdade em relação ao cenário que sempre quisemos evitar, o de
um não acordo.
Michel Barnier
Negociador da UE
A União Europeia vai intensificar os trabalhos de preparação
para todos os cenários, incluindo o de uma saída desordenada do Reino Unido da
UE.
Michel Barnier afirmou ainda que cabe ao Reino Unido
clarificar quais são os próximos passos a dar neste processo.
(Notícia em atualização)
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