EU Brexit ultimatum to May: Prove you have parliament’s
backing
European Council president warns EU won’t offer concessions
until there’s another House of Commons vote.
By TOM MCTAGUE 2/24/19, 7:50 PM CET Updated 2/25/19, 6:14 AM
CET
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — The walls are closing in on Theresa
May. Even in Egypt.
The EU stuck to its line as its leaders gathered, alongside
the U.K. prime minister, at the Red Sea coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for
an inaugural EU summit with Arab country leaders Sunday night.
European Council chief Donald Tusk warned May Sunday
afternoon that EU leaders will not offer concessions on the Brexit divorce
agreement until she holds another vote in the House of Commons, and proves she
has majority support for specific tweaks to the current Brexit deal.
Tusk’s position, relayed to the prime minister in a
30-minute private talk, came after May said she would delay the next parliament
vote on the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement until March 12. A senior EU source
confirmed May reiterated this position in the meeting with Tusk.
May's delay sparked fury in the U.K., with business leaders
and opposition figures attacking the prime minister for taking Britain closer
and closer to the cliff edge of no deal on March 29. Labour’s Shadow Brexit
Secretary Keir Starmer dubbed it the “height of irresponsibility.”
May's decision also puts added focus on MPs pushing to force
the government to apply for an extension to Article 50 — delaying Brexit — if
May has not secured changes to the current Brexit deal by March 13.
Tusk’s intervention Sunday night adds to the immediate
difficulty of the prime minister's position, but provides a glimmer of hope.
The European Council president “recalled the need for EU27
to have clarity that a proposal for the way forward can command a majority in
the U.K.” before EU leaders would revisit the issue at the next European
Council meeting, according to a senior EU source with knowledge of the meeting.
The message: The ball is in the U.K.'s court alone, but EU
leaders may revisit the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement if May can narrow her
demands to a single concrete proposal, backed by parliament.
But it also takes Brexit down to the wire: It means EU
leaders would not sign off any changes until the next European Council summit in
Brussels on March 21-22.
"The March 29 deadline is self-imposed, nobody in
Ireland or the EU is threatening no deal" — Irish Prime Minister Leo
Varadkar
Even then, a Brexit delay may be required to implement any
change agreed at the March EU leaders' meeting.
After arriving in Sharm el-Sheikh Sunday, Irish Prime
Minister Leo Varadkar floated the prospect of an extension of Article 50 and a
new “mechanism” to reassure MPs that the contentious so-called Irish backstop —
meant to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland — is not a permanent
settlement, as long as it does not “contradict the legal reality, or the spirit
of what's been agreed” in the original Withdrawal Agreement signed in November.
"The March 29 deadline is self-imposed, nobody in Ireland
or the EU is threatening no deal," Varadkar said. "This is a
situation the United Kingdom has created for itself. We’re not playing chicken,
we’re not playing poker. We’re just standing by our position."
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, also speaking at Sharm
el-Sheikh, echoed support for a Brexit delay, if there is no parliamentary
majority for a deal by mid-March.
The prime minister’s latest move to delay the U.K.’s Brexit
reckoning kicked off what her aides admit will be a particularly brutal —
“attritional” — week for No. 10 Downing Street.
May's next crucial meeting is with German Chancellor Angela
Merkel early Monday morning. On Tuesday, she will then update MPs on her quest
to win changes to the legally binding assurances that the Irish backstop cannot
be used to keep Britain indefinitely in the EU’s customs union.
Twenty-four hours later, the big Commons showdown will take
place, with MPs attempting to force the government to apply for a delay to
Britain’s withdrawal from the EU should a negotiated exit prove impossible to
pass the House of Commons before March 29.
The amendment authors say they seek to remove the impending
danger of a no-deal crashout.
Under a plan drawn up by Oliver Letwin, Yvette Cooper and
Nick Boles, three senior MPs, the prime minister will have until March 13 to
get parliament’s assent for a Brexit divorce agreement or be forced by law to
apply for an extension to the Article 50 negotiating period.
Already three Cabinet ministers — David Gauke, Amber Rudd
and Greg Clark — warned they are willing to vote against the government to
support the amendment.
Critics say the amendment would remove the U.K. government’s
leverage in the final negotiations.
The amendment authors say they seek to remove the impending
danger of a no-deal crashout.
By promising to return to the House of Commons for another
"meaningful vote" by the day before, March 12, the prime minister
hopes to see off the threatened parliamentary rebellion to remove no deal as a
credible option.
However, responding to the prime minister’s announcement of
the delayed vote, Boles said MPs could now approve his proposal “knowing it
does nothing to interfere with the PM’s negotiations between now and 12th
March. If the PM secures a deal and a Commons majority before 13th March, the
clauses mandating an extension to A50 will never be activated.”
On board the plane to Egypt, May warned MPs that delaying
Brexit achieved nothing.
“We still have it within our grasp to leave the European
Union on March 29,” she said. “Extending Article 50 doesn’t solve the problem;
it just defers the decision.”
This article is part of POLITICO’s premium Brexit service
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Theresa May dismisses pressure to step down as PM after
Brexit
May insists she will stay on after delaying ‘meaningful
vote’ on revised exit deal
Rajeev Syal in Sharm El Sheikh and Heather Stewart
Sun 24 Feb 2019 22.00 GMT Last modified on Mon 25 Feb 2019
00.35 GMT
Theresa May has insisted that she will stay on in Downing
Street beyond Brexit despite pressure from cabinet colleagues to step down,
after she angered MPs by conceding that there would be no “meaningful vote”
this week on a revised withdrawal deal.
The prime minister sparked a fierce backlash on Sunday by
admitting that the vote may now not be held before 12 March because her team
are still negotiating with EU officials on changes to the deal that she hopes
will reassure MPs.
“My team will be back in Brussels on Tuesday. As a result of
that, we won’t bring a meaningful vote to parliament this week, but we will
ensure that that happens by 12 March,” she said. “But it’s still within our
grasp to leave the EU by the 29 March, and that is what we are planning to do.”
The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, said: “This
decision to further delay the meaningful vote is the height of irresponsibility
and an admission of failure. Parliament cannot stand by and allow this to
happen.”
Cabinet ministers told the Guardian last week that they
expected the prime minister to stand down after the local elections in May, and
Brexiters would like to see a successor more sympathetic to their case to take
over the next stage of the negotiations.
Speaking en route to Sharm El Sheikh, however, where she is
attending a summit of the EU and the Arab League, May insisted that she wished
to remain in Downing Street to pursue her domestic agenda, including major
health reforms. “I was very clear in December with the Conservative party that
my job is not just to deliver Brexit. There is also a domestic agenda that I am
delivering on that reflects what I said when I was on the doorstop of No 10
when I first became prime minister.
“That is why we have been making key decisions such as extra
money for the National Health Service and the long-term plan for the NHS.”
Asked if she would resign by Christmas, she refused to reply.
May told Conservative MPs before the confidence vote in
December that she would stand aside before 2022, and later made it clear that
she intended to contest any snap election.
In a further challenge to her authority, three cabinet
ministers – Amber Rudd, Greg Clark and David Gauke – have publicly threatened
to defy her in the Commons this week by backing efforts to extend article 50 if
no deal is agreed by mid-March.
While there will be no meaningful vote this week, MPs will
be offered another chance on Wednesday to vote on a government motion and,
crucially, to amend it to bind May’s hands by trying to prevent a no-deal
Brexit.
Yvette Cooper, the co-signatory of the Cooper-Letwin bill,
which could win the backing of scores of ministers, said: “The prime minister’s
last-minute announcement that she won’t put a deal to parliament this week, and
is leaving it until just two weeks before Brexit day, is utterly shambolic and
irresponsible.
“The prime minister
is still committed to an amendable motion on Brexit next week, so our
cross-party group will be tabling a paving amendment to vote on this week in
order to get the bill through.”
May refused to condemn the three cabinet ministers speaking
out against a no-deal Brexit. “I have recognised and others have recognised
that there are strong views that are held on this issue. What we are
collectively doing as a government and as a cabinet is working to get that
deal,” she said.
“Parliament wants to see changes to the backstop. We have
been working with the EU on that. Our focus is on leaving with a deal. My
intention is to work with a deal.”
The announcement of the further delay to the meaningful vote
infuriated business groups, which have been keenly awaiting confirmation that a
deal has been agreed. Edwin Morgan, the interim director general of the
Institute of Directors, said: “There is too much at stake to run down the clock
and risk an accidental no-deal. We sincerely hope this is the last and final
date change.
“The prime minister must make absolutely clear ahead of time
what the government’s next steps will be if the vote fails again. Businesses
have lost all faith in the political process, and as those first in the firing
line of no-deal, they deserve to know more.”
The Guardian view on Mrs May’s deal: delay Brexit, not just
the MPs’ vote
Read more
The environment secretary, Michael Gove, earlier urged his
cabinet colleagues not to back a Commons vote on delaying Brexit. He said
Clark, Rudd and Gauke supporting the bid, which would push back the UK’s exit
date of 29 March, would be “the wrong thing to do”.
Following a torrid week in which three female MPs resigned
the Conservative whip after claiming that the party had been taken over by
Brexit extremists, May was forced to respond to claims from one defector, Anna
Soubry, that she had “a problem with immigration.”
May said: “No. As I have consistently said, immigration has
been good for this country. What people wanted to see is to ensure that
decisions about who is welcomed to this country are taken by the UK government
and are not taken by others elsewhere.”
May will make a statement to MPs on Tuesday in a last-ditch
bid to prevent her own ministers from voting for Cooper-Letwin and defeating
the government. A Whitehall source said: “The clock is ticking and no deal is
unacceptable, so we will listen carefully to what the PM has to say.”
Soubry, one of the three who joined the breakaway
Independent Group last week, said: “No surprise she’s nothing to bring back
because the EU will not reopen the withdrawal agreement. We know this to be the
case, because when she came back with it, that’s what she said. This is it,
it’s as good as it gets, and the negotiations are over. What a dreadful,
avoidable mess.”
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