Commons throws spanner in Brexit plan

BRUSSELS • British lawmakers upended Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plans Wednesday by giving Parliament the final say on any exit agreement the government reaches with the European Union.

The House of Commons voted 309-305 to insert Parliament in the Brexit process, dealing a blow to May’s already fragile authority.

Several lawmakers from the prime minister’s governing Conservative Party sided with the opposition to insist that any withdrawal deal with the EU requires an Act of Parliament to take effect — essentially giving lawmakers a veto on Brexit.

May had promised lawmakers a “meaningful vote” on the departure agreement, but political opponents said her assurance was not enough of a guarantee.

This vote was the government’s first defeat in Parliament on its Brexit legislation.

It came as an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill, the government’s flagship piece of Brexit legislation. The bill itself, which still is moving through Parliament, would convert some 12,000 EU laws into British statute on the day the U.K. leaves the bloc in March, 2019. Without it, Britain could face a legal black hole the day after Brexit.

Earlier Wednesday, EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said there will be “no turning back” for Britain on commitments made during an initial divorce deal between the two, after his U.K. counterpart insisted it was merely a “statement of intent.”

Barnier told the European Parliament that the negotiations so far have been “extremely complex and extraordinary” but insisted that he had made no concessions.

U.K. negotiator David Davis suggested over the weekend that the deal was less than cast in stone. The initial deal involved the maintenance of a transparent border between EU member Ireland and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland, as well as citizens’ rights.

But Barnier said “progress ... is going to have to be translated into a legally binding withdrawal agreement.”

The European Parliament’s chief Brexit official, Guy Verhofstadt, said Davis was already backtracking after his statement Sunday.

Verhofstadt said he and Davis had spoken on Tuesday and that Davis “assured me it is absolutely not his intention, not the intention of the U.K. government, to backtrack on their commitments.”

Theresa May