May’s plan ‘will lose by 80 votes’

WEAK: LAWMAKER WARNS PM TO NEGOTIATE NO BREXIT Twenty-five of her Conservatives voted with Labour to decide what happens next.

Asenior lawmaker in Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party said he would vote against her Brexit deal and predicted parliament would reject it by at least 80 votes, The Telegraph newspaper reported.

“Brexit should be an opportunity for our country to spread its wings, not have them clipped,” Mark Harper, who formerly served as Conservative chief whip, told the newspaper.

“The Cabinet’s proposals are not acceptable because they threaten the integrity of our country, keep us trapped indefinitely in a customs union and leave us in a weak negotiating position for our future relationship,” he said.

Harper said May would lose the December 11 vote “by at least 80” and urged May to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement.

Meanwhile, 25 of her own Conservative MPs voted with Labour to give the Commons the ability to decide what happens next if it votes down the Brexit deal.

“The day May lost control,” read the front page headline of the Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph.

In a dramatic hour on Tuesday, the government lost three key votes that exposed just how little support it has in the Commons, as MPs assert their power ahead of Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU) in March.

Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) joined opposition MPs in two votes that found ministers in contempt of parliament for failing to publish in full the legal advice on the Brexit deal.

If May loses the vote next week, the government has 21 days to return to MPs to say what happens next.

Grieve’s amendment, which passed by 321 votes to 299, could allow MPs to amend that statement, raising the possibility they could demand a re-negotiation, a second referendum or even stay in the EU.

“Brexit on the brink,” headlined the Daily Mail.

May opened the first of five days of debate on the Brexit deal on Monday, with a personal plea for MPs not to sabotage the result of months of tough negotiations with the EU.

“This argument has gone on long enough,” she said.

Former foreign minister Boris Johnson warned that Britain threatened to become the EU’s “de facto colony”. – Reuters, AFP

Brexit on the brink.