Brexit: constitutional chaos after third vote on deal
blocked
Prime minister likely to have to request long article 50
extension after Bercow intervenes
Jessica Elgot, Rowena Mason, Rajeev Syal, and Daniel Boffey
in Brussels
Tue 19 Mar 2019 09.01 GMT First published on Mon 18 Mar 2019
20.34 GMT
Theresa May’s government has been plunged into
constitutional chaos after the Speaker blocked the prime minister from asking
MPs to vote on her Brexit deal for a third time unless it had fundamentally
changed.
With 11 days to go until Britain is due to leave the EU, May
was forced to pull her plans for another meaningful vote because John Bercow
said she could not ask MPs to pass the same deal, after they rejected it twice
by huge margins. EU officials, meanwhile, were considering offering her a new
date for a delayed Brexit to resolve the crisis.
Quoting from the guide to parliamentary procedure, Erskine
May, Bercow said the question “may not be brought forward again during the same
session” and that it was a “strong and longstanding convention” dating back to
1604. It must be “not different in terms of wording, but different in terms of
substance”, he said, suggesting there must be a change in what the EU is
offering.
Bercow suggests he will not allow another Brexit deal vote
unless EU agrees further changes – as it happened
Read more
Bercow’s surprise intervention means May is likely to have
to go to Thursday’s Brussels summit with a request for a long extension to
article 50, which could mean the UK has to spend more than £100m on
participating in European parliament elections.
During the delay, parliament would have to make a decision
on how to break the deadlock, potentially with a second referendum, an election
or a cross-party proposal for a softer Brexit. Alternatively, government
sources suggested May could negotiate a lengthy extension with the EU, with a
“get-out clause” enabling it to be cut short if her Brexit deal is passed by
parliament before the European parliamentary elections.
One option under consideration is some kind of “paving vote”
to set aside the convention if a majority in the House of Commons agreed they
wanted to look at the deal again.
Sources in Brussels suggested the EU may offer May a helping
hand by agreeing on a new delayed Brexit date at the summit, which could allow
her to argue next week that the deal is sufficiently different to merit a third
vote in parliament.
Some hardline Conservative Brexit supporters were pleased
that May’s efforts to pass her deal were being frustrated, hoping the EU would
veto an extension and the UK would be forced to exit without a deal on 29
March. Government sources downplayed such a scenario, saying the EU was highly
likely to grant an extension.
A government source said: “It seems clear that the Speaker’s
motive here is to rule out a meaningful vote this week, which also stands in
the way of a securing a shorter extension.
“It leads you to believe what he really wants is a longer
extension, where parliament will take over the process and force a softer form
of Brexit. But anyone who thinks that this makes no deal more likely is
mistaken – the Speaker wouldn’t have done it if it did.”
No 10 and ministers were locked in debate on Monday night on
how to get around the Speaker’s ruling in order to have another meaningful vote
next week. The government was initially blindsided by Bercow’s pronouncement
and unable to comment on what May would do next as it had not been
“forewarned”. By Monday evening they would only say that the government “noted”
the Speaker’s statement, adding: “This is something that requires proper
consideration.”
But supporters of May’s deal were openly furious, with
Robert Buckland, who as solicitor general is one of May’s chief law officers,
saying it amounted to a “constitutional crisis”. He suggested No 10 might have
to consider the drastic step of ending the parliamentary session early and
restarting a new session, although government sources suggested this would not
be an easy option.
“Frankly we could have done without this, but it’s something
we’re going to have to negotiate with and deal with,” he told BBC News.
Another minister, Rory Stewart, appeared to liken the
Speaker to Humpty Dumpty saying his attitude was that a rule “means just what I
choose it to mean”. Other senior government figures described Downing St as
being in a state of shock. “It’s miserable,” one said. “I think the first thing
is the government having to come to terms with it.”
A number of Conservative MPs said they suspected Bercow’s
underlying reason for refusing another vote this week was an attempt to bounce
the government into seeking a longer extension to article 50 from the EU,
allowing parliament to seize control of the Brexit process.
However, others suggested the Speaker’s ruling could be
helpful to May because there was little chance her deal would have passed this
week anyway.
Downing Street had made it clear the prime minister would
only have put the deal to another vote with the backing of the Democratic
Unionist party and more Conservatives, but sources close to the talks told the
Guardian a breakthrough was unlikely before the end of this week.
“It is looking extremely unlikely that there is a clear path
through to a deal this week. The reality is that practically to get it signed
off by all parties, we would have had to have a deal concluded by today to get
it through before Thursday’s EU council,” said one DUP source.
The angriest reaction to Bercow’s announcement came from
Conservative Brexiters who had switched to vote for May’s deal and were among
those coaxing colleagues to come over the line with them at the next
opportunity. Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers,
said the deal was “clearly gathering support” and it was essential that
parliament was given another opportunity to vote.
The former children’s minister Tim Loughton said it was the
“most serious constitutional crisis I have seen in my 22 years in this house”.
“Just when it looked like order was about to finally emerge
from the chaos, and there was real momentum building to get sufficient support
to back the deal, now Bercow has fashioned a way to reassert the chaos,” he
said.
Brexit delay shreds Theresa May’s strategy
Say goodbye to any significance to the March 29 Brexit date.
By TOM
MCTAGUE 3/18/19, 8:13 PM CET
Updated 3/19/19, 4:35 AM CET
LONDON — The world could look very different by the end of
the week.
Despite fevered speculation in Westminster about the prospect
of a third vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal, the stark reality facing MPs over
the next 48 hours is that if EU leaders agree later this week to extend Article
50, Brexit is automatically delayed — and March 29 disappears as a meaningful
deadline.
The consequences of putting off Brexit day are potentially
profound, yet barely acknowledged in Westminster, where many Brexiteers remain
confident Britain will depart the EU with or without a deal on March 29,
particularly after Monday's bombshell ruling from House of Commons Speaker John
Bercow curtailing the government's scope to bring back the same deal for
further votes.
However, if EU leaders agree to scrap March 29 as exit day —
a date so significant that the Treasury commissioned commemorative coins on
which it would be inscribed — the pressure to agree or reject the prime
minister’s deal will all-but disappear. That matters because alternatives that
have up until now looked impossible because there was not enough time — such as
a general election, a move to force Theresa May out as prime minister or a
substantial renegotiation of the Political Declaration based on new red lines —
come back into the frame as credible options. Downing Street's tactic of using
the impending Brexit date as leverage with MPs disappears overnight.
“Once an extension is agreed, it is binding in international
law,” explained one senior U.K. government official who said this fact was
being largely overlooked in parliament. “Once you’ve got unanimous agreement,
the date in Article 50 effectively changes from March 29 to whatever is
agreed.”
The stance in Brussels is that if an extension to Article 50
is agreed, a new exit day is automatically created.
Brexiteers such as Boris Johnson, the former foreign
secretary, are still urging the prime minister to attempt to renegotiate the
contentious Irish backstop before bringing it back to parliament.
In Brussels, the position is clear. A so-called "room
document" circulated among ambassadors at a meeting on Friday evening —
and seen by POLITICO — confirmed that if an extension to Article 50 is agreed,
a new exit day is automatically created. "The latter date will then become
the cut-off date when the separation automatically happens,” the document
states.
This will only change in two circumstances: “[Either] a
withdrawal agreement has entered into force or unless the notification of the
intention to withdraw has been revoked.”
In Westminster, the U.K. government will be obliged to tweak
the EU (Withdrawal) Act to change the exit day, but this can be done by a
minister using secondary legislation known as a Statutory Instrument. It
remains a source of contention whether the U.K. needs to change its domestic
law to delay Brexit at all, because it would continue to be bound by its international
commitments regardless.
Bercow's intervention, on the face of it, severely restricts
the government's room for maneuver for a third or forth meaningful vote.
Bringing the deal back to the House of Commons this week now looks next to
impossible. But if the summit does produce a decision to delay Brexit day,
ministers could argue that even if the deal itself is unchanged, the
proposition MPs are voting on would be subject to a "demonstrable
change," in the phraseology adopted by the speaker.
May is committed to requesting an extension following last
week’s votes by MPs against no-deal and for a delay to Britain’s exit. But an
extension is not a foregone conclusion. It requires the unanimous approval of
EU27 leaders and the message from many senior EU figures has been that while
they are open to extension, it must have a purpose.
They might refuse to grant an extension of Article 50 at
this week’s summit unless the U.K. prime minister offers a clear reason for the
delay — such as a second referendum, general election or reversal of British
red lines on the customs union and single market.
However, it remains unclear how the European Council will
thrash out an extension. The leaders of the 27 remaining member states will
meet without the U.K. PM before dinner on Thursday. If they accept or reject
her request, the process is simple. But should they make a counteroffer —
either by attaching conditions or offering an extension of a different length —
senior U.K. officials are unclear how London will formally accept or approve
the proposal.
The "room document" circulated to ambassadors last
week, states that EU leaders would need evidence that the U.K. agrees to any
proposal before they could sign it off. The request for an extension itself
does not suffice, the document states.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders stuck to the EU
line on his way into a Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels Monday
morning. "We are not against an extension in Belgium, but the problem is
to do what?" he said.
"We should be open for a longer extension if there is
an argued reason for doing so," Hans Dahlgren, the Swedish EU affairs minister,
told the Local, "But just to have the process going on and on and on
without any plan for what the options on the table would be, that’s not very
attractive."
The "room document" makes clear that any extension
beyond July 1 would require the U.K. to elect MEPs to the European Parliament
in the upcoming election.
One U.K. official said MPs have missed their chance to shape
the government’s request for an extension by failing to put forward an
amendment last week setting out the terms or length of an extension.
“Parliament had its chance to vote on this last week,” said the official. “No
one even proposed a date in terms of extension, so it’s up to the government.
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