‘Parly can’t run Brexit’

– Prime Minister Theresa May cannot accept a proposal to hand parliament more control over Brexit, her spokesperson said yesterday, setting up a showdown with lawmakers who want the right to step in if Britain risks crashing out of the EU with no deal.

May has struggled to get backing for an EU withdrawal Bill to cut ties with the bloc. She tried to find a compromise last week with pro-EU lawmakers in her Conservative Party, but the arrangement fell through.

Today, she will again try to head off a rebellion by pro-EU Conservatives over their demand for a “meaningful vote” on any Brexit deal. The pro-EU Conservative lawmakers want parliament to be able to intervene before Britain’s deadline to leave the EU by next March, if May’s government either fails to negotiate a deal with Brussels, or if it reaches a deal that lawmakers reject.

The government says giving parliament too big a say would tie its hands in talks and has offered, instead, to give parliament a vote on a statement on its next steps. With no majority in the House of Commons, it will take only a handful of Conservatives to vote against the government for May to lose. But one lawmaker said ministers may have won over some of the rebels who had threatened to vote against its proposal.

With party officials still trying to persuade lawmakers, May’s spokesperson expressed “hope that all MPs will support the government’s position” rather than a competing one which its backer, Conservative Dominic Grieve says offers a “meaningful vote”. Grieve’s amendment has won backing from the unelected House of Lords, setting up a vote in the elected Commons.

“We cannot accept the amendment on a meaningful vote agreed in the Lords,” the spokesperson said, adding that it would “allow parliament to direct the government on its approach to exiting the EU, binding May’s hands and making it harder to secure a good deal for the UK”. –