Bad day for May’s Brexit vision
Theresa May suffered humiliation on a historic scale yesterday as her Government became the first to be found in contempt of Parliament.
May lost three Brexit-related votes in the space of barely an hour, making her the first Prime Minister in 40 years to be defeated three times in one day.
She was told she must cede control of Brexit to Parliament if her deal with the EU was voted down next week, effectively killing off the prospect of a no-deal.
Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general, led a successful plot by 25 Tory Remainers to give MPs the right to dictate a ‘‘Plan B’’ to May if she lost the Brexit deal vote.
May was also forced to bow to the will of Parliament by agreeing to publish the Attorney General’s full legal advice on the Withdrawal Agreement, after Labour won a vote demanding it.
May, who introduced the first of five days of debate on the Brexit deal moments after losing the third vote, is now fighting to save not just her deal but her administration.
Pleading with MPs for their backing, she told them: ‘‘I have spent nearly two years negotiating this deal. I have lost valued colleagues along the way and faced fierce criticism from all sides.
‘‘If I had banged the table, walked out of the room and at the end of the process delivered the very same deal . . . some might say I had done a better job.
‘‘But I didn’t play to the gallery, I focused on getting a deal that honours the referendum and sets us on course for a bright future – and I did so through painstaking hard work.’’
She also told the Commons: ‘‘We should not let the search for a perfect Brexit prevent a good Brexit that delivers for the British people.’’
There was little sympathy for her from colleagues. Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary, described it as a ‘‘national humiliation’’.
On a day when May made history for all the wrong reasons, she became the first Prime Minister since James Callaghan to lose three votes in a day. May has now lost 16 votes – as many as her three direct predecessors, David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, lost between them.
The Government had defied a motion passed last month calling on it to publish the full legal advice given to the Cabinet on the Brexit deal by Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, instead publishing a ‘‘legal position’’ on Tuesday. The Government was held in contempt for its failure to publish the full document, losing a vote on the matter by 311 to 293. It also lost a vote attempting to refer the matter to a Parliamentary committee by four votes.
The DUP, on whose votes May relies for her majority, joined forces with Labour to vote against the Government, effectively ending its confidence and supply deal with the Tories.
Nigel Dodds, the DUP’s Westminster leader, said: ‘‘We haven’t broken the confidence and supply deal – Theresa May broke it.’’
Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the House, said the Government would ‘‘respond’’ to the vote today, which was interpreted to mean that the full legal advice would be published, but Downing Street later said responding was not the same as publishing and so the document could be briefly delayed.
John Bercow, the Speaker, made it clear that the legal advice must be published before the vote on the Brexit deal on December 11.
Just an hour and five minutes after losing the first vote, May had lost the third as Grieve’s amendment was passed by 321 votes to 299, an ominous sign for May’s chances of winning next week’s vote.
A Brexiteer Cabinet minister said: ‘‘Up until now, the choice was – the deal, no-deal and no Brexit. As a result of this amendment, that has changed to the deal or no Brexit.’’ –