U.K. lawmakers vote to delay Brexit
EU leaders divided over issue after Brits reject idea of second plebiscite
British lawmakers voted Thursday to seek to delay Brexit — maybe for weeks, maybe for months — after Prime Minister Theresa May’s plans for leaving the European Union have been repeatedly rejected by a raucous Parliament trying to wrestle control of the exit from the government.
Lawmakers also voted against holding a second Brexit referendum, a complete do-over that could see the results of the historic June 2016 plebiscite overturned.
While many members of Parliament may ultimately back a second referendum — a highly contentious prospect, marketed as a “People’s Vote” — even supporters of the move withheld support on Thursday, hoping instead to push the idea in tumultuous days to come.
May is offering lawmakers a stark choice: support her now twice-rejected Brexit deal in a third “meaningful vote” next week — dubbed MV3 — or face the prospect of a Brexit delay that could stretch far into the future, perhaps a year or more.
Christopher Chope, a hardline Brexiteer and fellow member of May’s Conservative Party, confessed he felt May’s cold steel. “Instead of accepting verdict of House, she is stubbornly continuing to assert that her deal is a good deal. And now she is holding a pistol to our heads by threatening that we will lose Brexit altogether,” he told the House of Commons.
May said that if the lawmakers back a Brexit deal by Wednesday — the day before a European summit — then she will ask EU leaders for a “one-off extension” ending on June 30. Those three months would be neces- sary to pass legislation in Britain and on the continent and to provide for an “orderly Brexit.”
If the lawmakers reject May on her third attempt to win approval for her half-in, half-out compromise plan for Brexit, then the prime minister would ask EU leaders for a longer delay — the government’s motion doesn’t say how long.
Staying in beyond June would require Britain, as one of the 28 EU member states, to hold European Parliament elections in May 2019. This would essentially keep Britain in the economic and political union a good long while.
How long? Maybe forever, opponents of Brexit hope and hard-line Brexiteers fear.
European leaders will have to decide what to do with Britain when they gather for a two-day conclave in Brussels next Thursday. They are divided over how much rope to give.
Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, tweeted on Thursday that he would urge EU leaders to support a “long extension” if Britain needed to “rethink its Brexit strategy.”
French President Emmanuel Macron does not support granting a short extension, if it is merely for Britain to try to reopen negotiations over terms with the European Union, an official from Macron’s office told Reuters.
“Once they sort themselves out, I’m pretty sure the 27 will still be united on the next steps forward,” European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans told Sky News. “But many member states are saying, yes, you’re talking about an extension, but to do what? That question appeared unlikely to be settled by Thursday’s votes.”
The vote against the second referendum was decisive: 85 to 335. The opposition Labour party asked its members to abstain and urged members pushing for a second referendum to be patient.