What happens now that May's Brexit deal has been defeated
again?
Votes on no deal and extending article 50 to go ahead but
long-term outlook remains unclear
Peter Walker Political correspondent
@peterwalker99
Tue 12 Mar 2019 20.41 GMT Last modified on Wed 13 Mar 2019
09.59 GMT
May ‘profoundly regrets’ parliament voting down Brexit deal
– video
Theresa May’s second attempt to pass her Brexit deal has
again been badly defeated, this time by a majority of 149.
What happens next?
As promised in advance by Theresa May, the next step will be
motions on successive days to see first if MPs want to rule out a no-deal
departure and then, if they do, whether they wish to extend article 50 and
delay the Brexit process. The Conservatives will have a free vote on no deal.
May stressed that Wednesday’s vote would not rule out no deal for ever – just
for now. And if MPs decline to rule out no deal, she said, it will become
official government policy.
Whatever happens, it’s not good news. Badly losing two
Commons votes on your government’s flagship policy is unprecedented for a
modern prime minister, and in any other political era would herald their
imminent eviction from Downing Street. There had been speculation that May
could even resign if she lost again. While she has not, she is badly weakened,
and the challenges will surely come. For now, MPs’ focus is on seeking to shape
Brexit, and few would probably want to immediately take on her onerous task.
But – as with everything in this matter – events could move very quickly.
Could she present her deal yet again?
It’s possible. Speaking after the defeat, May’s spokesman
refused to rule it out, reiterating the PM’s belief that departure with a deal
is the better option, and that hers is the best deal on offer. In the interim,
he said, MPs had some “very significant decisions to make”.
How long could Brexit be delayed?
That depends, not least on whether MPs support this. May is
adamant that if there is a pause it should be brief and not one that would
require the UK to take part in the upcoming European elections, taking place in
10 weeks’ time. But any Commons motion on extending article 50 will be
amendable, and parliament might take another view.
Does this count as a victory for the ERG?
The Conservative hard-Brexiters from the European Research
Group played a key role in sinking the deal, and their leader, Jacob Rees-Mogg,
told reporters beforehand he assumed that the next step would be a no-deal
Brexit. However, this is something of a roll of the dice, especially as the
consensus is that there is nowhere near a Commons majority for such an exit.
Before the vote, the Tory MP Nick Boles warned the ERG that if they voted
against the deal then centrist Tories would “do whatever it takes to frustrate
you”, including a delay to departing the EU and cross-party efforts to seek a
majority for a softer Brexit deal.
Could May seek a softer Brexit?
Seemingly not, at least not yet. After the vote her
spokesman reiterated the prime minister’s opposition to any Brexit deal that
involves a customs union. Meanwhile the EU has indicated that it has no
appetite for further talks.
What will Labour do next?
While pushing for a second referendum is still among the
party’s official demands, in responding to May’s defeat, Jeremy Corbyn spoke
mainly about again pushing Labour’s Brexit plan – which involves membership of
a customs union, or the idea of a general election. But again, things could
change quickly, and those MPs who back a second referendum have not given up on
the idea.
Could there be a general election?
That is what some Conservative backbenchers loyal to May
were warning would inevitably happen if she lost the latest vote. This is
likely to have been intended as an extra warning to would-be Tory rebels, one
that went largely unobserved. An election could still happen, but that would
involve extending article 50 for longer than the government wants.
The prime minister got one thing right: we can’t blame the
EU for this
Polly Toynbee
What did the Brexiteers imagine they could achieve? They’ve
brought down their own party and in effect their government
Tue 12 Mar 2019 21.32 GMT Last modified on Wed 13 Mar 2019
00.29 GMT
Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker in Strasbourg, 11 March
2019
“One of the most
significant votes this House will ever take,” said Keir Starmer, winding up for
Labour with formidable forensic authority in the midst of madness. “I could not
have possibly seen the scale of calamity now upon us.” This was indeed a
monumental event. What next? No one knows.
Those who promised that leaving the EU meant “taking back
control” have instead lost all control. The revolutionary Brexit Conservatives
have brought down their own party and in effect their government. Tory
extremists who voted down the prime minister’s deal while yearning for their
utterly unobtainable “clean break” have lost control too: the one certainty is
this parliament of chaos will ensure Britain does not leave the EU with no
deal.
Listening from afar was the EU’s negotiator, Michel Barnier,
who shot out a tweet to the Brexiteer lunatics, warning them not to indulge in
the “dangerous illusion” that there will be even a split second of “transition”
with a no deal. Out will be deadly out, like it was for Captain Oates.
Parliament itself is all that is left to seize control, as
party discipline breaks on all sides. For the prime minister to declare a free
vote tomorrow on no deal is a shameful and astonishing abdication of
responsibility – or just despair in the face of the collapse of all authority.
She has made clear she herself sees no deal as an unthinkable danger with
“grave implications” – but not to whip against it is an extraordinary
capitulation to her wild fringe. What, at this stage, is the point of
pretending to hold together the party that has brought us to this pitiful
state?
The Speaker made clear that the “opportunity will arise”
shortly to test out every possible future. Bleakly, Theresa May laid them out:
to revoke article 50; a second referendum; or another deal, but not hers. Note
that the most obvious need – for a general election to release us from this
House of horrors – was not on her agenda. Her broken party no longer has people
in grey suits, figures of shadowy gravitas, to tell her to go so that another
election under another leader might happen. The foghorn buffoonery of attorney
general Geoffrey Cox shows how hollow the party is now. Foolishly they wasted
their one annual vote of no confidence in their leader – and she won it.
But can she keep going? There has rarely, if ever, been a
spectacle of more pathos than this beleaguered prime minister croaking her way
excruciatingly through her speech, neglected and deserted by her own MPs on the
empty benches behind her. Her late-night Strasbourg dash was all in vain. She
held meeting after meeting pleading for her MPs to switch – but few did. What
do her party’s rebels imagine they will achieve?
At least May spelled out one useful warning. When everything
collapses around their ears, when Brexit proves a calamity, “It will be no good
blaming the EU, responsibility would lie with this House.” And so it would –
unless this House can pull back, revoke article 50 with a confirmatory public
vote, and try to dismiss this whole desperate episode as a brief strange
nightmare that history should forget.
There would be so much to obliterate from the history books:
how did the DUP, who have wrecked their Stormont government, who absolutely
fail to represent Northern Ireland’s 56% remainer voters, come to hold such
power over the once mighty Tory party? How did a politician as inept as May
come to preside over this most critical moment? How, for that matter, did Her
Majesty’s Opposition fail abysmally to seize the hour and stand resolutely
against the Brexit insanity? Jeremy Corbyn in his 25-minute speech today made
not one reference, not one, to the second referendum his party overwhelmingly
desires? So much for his lifetime of preaching the supremacy of party members’
views. Nonethless, Labour will not be to blame: the Brexit nightmare is all
Tory.
Here we stand in a thick fog of constitutional and political
confusion. There is no solution but to ask the people. Remain stands 8-10%
ahead in the polls. May’s deal is nowhere with the voters. People want to “Get
it over with”? The only way now is to stay in the EU, and forget all this ever
happened. As for the fate of our pitiable prime minister, all that keeps her
propped up in No 10 is the awful prospect of the lineup of contenders for her
post. God help us all.
• Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
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