What now for Brexit?

LON DON • Now that lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit divorce deal for a second time, the country’s planned March 29 departure is an open question.

NO DEAL?

A phalanx of pro-brexit politicians support the idea of leaving the EU without a deal. They argue it would free the U.K. from EU rules and red tape, allowing the country to forge an independent global trade policy. But economists and businesses fear a so-called “no-deal Brexit” would hammer the economy as tariffs and other trade barriers go up between Britain and the EU.

DELAY?

If lawmakers on Wednesday give leaving the EU without an agreement a thumbs down, they have one choice left: seeking more time. A third vote scheduled for Thursday is on asking the EU to delay Brexit day by up to three months. This option is likely to prove popular, since politicians on both sides of the Brexit debate fear time is running out to secure an orderly withdrawal by March 29. But the rest of the EU is reluctant to postpone Brexit beyond the late May elections for the EU’S legislature, the European Parliament.

DEFERRED?

Whatever Parliament decides, it will not end Britain’s Brexit crisis. Both lawmakers and the public remain split between backers of a clean break from the EU and those who favour continuing a close relationship through a post-brexit trade deal or by reversing the June 2016 decision to leave. May is unwilling to abandon her hard-won Brexit agreement and might try to put it to Parliament a third time, although the latest margin of defeat makes that tricky. Some think the only way forward is a snap election that could rearrange the forces in Parliament and break the political deadlock. May has ruled that out, but could come to see it as her only option.