EU HAVE GOT TO GO
»»PM and Tories face no-confidence vote tonight »»Calls for new referendum as leave deal is dumped
THERESA May suffered the worst defeat in House of Commons history last night.
Her Government face a no-confidence vote today after MPs rejected her dismal Brexit deal by a massive 230 votes.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told May she’d “reached the end of the line”, while First Minister Nicola Sturgeon demanded a second EU referendum.
THERESA MAY has vowed to fight on for an “orderly” Brexit agreement despite a massive 230-vote defeat of her plans that leaves her chances of getting any deal at all shredded.
The Prime Minister fell to a historic Commons defeat at 7.39pm last night, as 118 of her own MPs sided with the opposition – a humiliating but fitting finale to her two years of Brexit negotiations.
But after Tory MPs failed in their bid to remove her as Tory leader last month, May carries on in Downing Street – and she immediately threw down a gauntlet to Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn to launch a no-confidence motion against her government.
Corbyn took up the challenge and today the Commons will debate the Labour motion.
He said the “catastrophic” defeat represented an “absolutely decisive” verdict by MPs on May’s handling of Brexit.
But with the DUP MPs pledging to keep supporting the Tories in BY TORCUIL CRICHTON government, Labour’s first shot at sparking a general election looks set to fail.
May does not want to extend Article 50 to allow more time for negotiation. Nor will she concede to calls, from Nicola Sturgeon among others, for a second referendum on Brexit.
In the face of such a humbling defeat, May did finally extend an olive branch across the Commons and offered to hold cross-party talks in the hope of finding “genuinely negotiable” solutions which she can take to Brussels.
She told MPs: “The House has spoken and this Government will listen. It is clear that this House does not support this deal but tonight’s vote tells us nothing about what it does support.”
But afterwards the Prime Minister’s spokesman insisted that the “deal remains” and will be the basis for whatever talks follow.
European Council president
Donald Tusk asked in a tweet: “If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?”
May said she will also go back to the EU to consider new plans.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU Commission president, said he regretted the rejection of the deal he had worked on with May.
He tweeted: “I urge the UK to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Time is almost up.”
The PM will now have to return to Parliament with a new plan by Monday night if she is to stand any chance of saving her Brexit vision.
The defeat though, with no clear majority in the Commons for any other plan, dramatically increases the chances of a no-deal Brexit.
Most pleased with last night’s result were the Tory Eurosceptic MPs of the European Reform Group.
Leading Brexiteer Boris Johnson said it was a “bigger defeat than people have been expecting” and it
meant May’s deal was now “dead”. But he said he would back May in a confidence motion and said the result last night gave her a “massive mandate to go back to Brussels” to negotiate a better deal, without the controversial Northern Ireland backstop.
With MPs fighting the countdown clock to the end of March, Speaker John Bercow appeared to suggest he would allow a vote on extending Article 50 if enough MPs pushed for it.
Bercow was answering a point of order from Labour’s Yvette Cooper, after the former Cabinet minister said, with just 70 days until Brexit, there needed to be more time to get another deal.
Bercow said: “This will be discussed I’m sure in the days ahead on the floor of the House.”
He added: “Of one thing I am sure – that which members wish to debate and which they determine shall be subject to a vote, will be debated and voted on. That seems to me so blindingly obvious that no sensible person would disagree with the proposition.
“If MPs want to debate a matter and to vote on it, that opportunity I’m sure will unfold in the period ahead.”
May went down with a defiant call to a packed House of Commons to back her deal.
Speaking before the vote, the Prime Minister said the debate had seen Parliament at its “most passionate and vigorous”.
She went on: “This is a debate about our economy and security, the livelihoods of our constituents and the future for our children and for generations to come.
“It goes to the heart of our constitution and no one should forget that it is a democratic process that has got us to where we are.”
She took an intervention from Tory
Sir Edward Leigh to signal that the Government would look for “creative solutions” to the Northern Irish backstop.
A last-minute plea by Ian Blackford, the SNP Westminster leader, for the issue to go back to the people was also dismissed and Blackford did not pursue a motion calling for a second referendum.
May said the result of the 2016 referendum was “clear and decisive”.
She said: “Parliament gave the people a choice, we set the clock ticking on our departure and tonight we will determine whether we move forward with a Withdrawal Agreement that honours the vote and sets us on course for a better future. The responsibility of each and every one of us at this moment is profound, for this is an historic decision that will set the future of our country for generations.”
An amendment by Tory backwoodsman John Barron, which would order the Government to demand power to unilaterally withdraw from the backstop, gathered only 24 votes with 600 against.
Heavily pregnant Labour MP Tulip Siddiq was wheeled into chamber by her husband, having postponed a Caesarean section birth of her second child till Thursday to vote.
She said she was also expecting to be wheeled in today for the no confidence vote in the Government.