MPs scrap to steer Brexit process
Politicians from all parties and factions are trying to wrest control with demands
Westminster is in full Game of Thrones mode over Brexit as rival factions with opposing agendas seek to gain an advantage. After surving a no-confidence motion yesterday, British Prime Minister Theresa May launched into cross-party talks, saying she had invited the leaders of all parties to meet her to try to hammer out a deal that could pass a bitterly divided House of Commons.
May now must return to Parliament on Tuesday to present MPs with some sort of “Plan B”.
The Prime Minister is caught between the rock of her own negotiating red lines and the hard place of a Parliament that wants to force a radical change of course.
Faced with the deadlock, MPs from all parties are trying to wrest control of the Brexit process so that Parliament can direct planning for Britain’s departure.
But with no clear majority in Parliament for any single alternative, there’s a growing chance that Britain may seek to postpone its departure date while politicians work on a new plan — or even hand the decision back to voters in a new referendum on Britain’s EU membership.
In brief remarks outside 10 Downing Street, May said she understood if people outside Parliament found the previous 24 hours “unsettling”.
She added: “Now MPs have made clear what they don’t want, we must all work constructively together to set out what Parliament does want”. Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who initiated the motion against the Government, had so far refused her overture, May said.
Labour leaders insisted that May must first rule out a “no-deal” Brexit, which they say would wreak havoc on British workers.
“Before there can be any positive discussions about the way forward, the Government must remove, clearly and once and for all, the prospect of the catastrophe of no-deal and all the chaos that would come as a result of that,” Corbyn said.
Leaders of the Scottish National Party have been in discussions with May this week, but said that avoiding a no-deal Brexit, extending the deadline for leaving the EU, and consideration of a second Brexit referendum “have to be on the table” as options.
May said again in Parliament yesterday that she would not support a second vote.
Within May’s Conservative Party, too, factions have put down markers.
The hardline wing of Tory Brexiteers published a plan for leaving the 28-nation trading bloc with no deal and trading with Europe as a third country.
Although a third of Conservative Party members on Wednesday voted against May’s withdrawal agreement negotiated with European leaders, and even though Conservatives challenged her leadership in a party-only confidence vote just last month, Conservatives supported her in the confidence vote involving the whole House of Commons yesterday.
Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London, said May is still standing, in part, because no one else in her party wants to take over at the Brexit helm. “Who else is there? Who wants to take on this role? No hard Brexiteer wants to, because they know, in their heart of hearts, it can’t be done and they don’t want to be blamed for it. And anyone else would have to come from a soft Brexit perspective and would end up splitting the party.”
Besides not having an obvious leader waiting in the wings, the Tories do not want a general election against Labour.
Corbyn is also under mounting pressure to change course on Brexit, with senior figures now prepared to defy party policy and join Tory rebels attempting to force through a draft referendum bill.
A number of Labour MPs are preparing to back an amendment due to be laid on Tuesday, which would pave the way for a new referendum.
Tory MP Dominic Grieve, a former attorney-general, is behind the alleged “coup”, with plans also afoot to lay a draft legislation calling for an extension of Article 50.
As a Eurosceptic, Corbyn has repeatedly played down calls for a second referendum, which he fears could alienate voters in Labour’s northern heartlands.
However, his Brexit policy is increasingly at odds with party members, who in September unanimously backed a motion that pledged to campaign for a second vote if they are unable to force a snap election.
The sparring between the parties during the day-long debate over May’s fate yesterday was punctuated by withering rhetoric and sharp thrusts.
Tom Watson, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, began with “432 to 202, Mr Speaker,” citing the margin by which May lost vote on her Brexit plan. “That is not a mere flesh wound,” Watson said. “No one doubts her determination, which is generally an
admirable quality. But misapplied it can be toxic.”
Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, laid into Corbyn: “He wants to leave Nato. He wants to get rid of our nuclear deterrent. And recently in a speech he said, ‘Why do countries boast about the size of their armies? . . . No allies. No deterrent. No army. No way can this country ever allow that man to be our prime minister.”
For his part, Corbyn said May was running a “zombie government,” raising the spectre of the undead prime minister repeating over and over again that “Brexit means Brexit” while devouring the brains of her party.
“Brexit is like a black hole that devours all light,” Labour’s Angela Eagle said.