The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
May suffers humiliating defeat in Brexit vote
Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal was emphatically rejected last night.
Historic defeat for prime minister by 432 votes to 202
Theresa May faces no confidence vote today
118 Conservative MPS voted against the government
First minister demands May backs Euroref2
MPS have rejected Theresa May’s Brexit plans by an emphatic 432 votes to 202 in a historic vote that has thrown the future of her administration and the nature of the UK’S EU withdrawal into doubt.
The rebuff was delivered in the House of Commons just moments after the prime minister made a last-ditch appeal for MPS to back the Withdrawal Agreement she sealed in November after almost two years of negotiation.
The 118 Conservative rebels included fervent Brexiteers like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-mogg and former Brexit secretaries David Davis and Dominic Raab, as well as Remainers Anna Soubry and Dominic Grieve.
The 230-vote margin of defeat was the worst suffered by any government in a meaningful division since at least the First World War and would normally force a prime minister from office.
But Mrs May made clear she intends to stay on, setting out plans for talks with senior parliamentarians from parties across the Commons to find “genuinely negotiable” solutions to take to Brussels.
Jeremy Corbyn said the “catastrophic” defeat was an “absolutely decisive” verdict on Mrs May’s handling of Brexit.
He announced he has tabled a motion of no confidence in the government, which will go to a vote today and could force an early general election if backed by more than 50% of MPS.
But his hopes of ousting the PM were undermined when the DUP’S Sammy Wilson said his party will back Mrs May in her fight for survival.
And a spokesman for Mr Rees-mogg’s European Research Group confirmed they too would back the government.
Mrs May – who said she expected to survive today’s vote – has until January 21 to set out a Plan B, with the clock ticking on the scheduled date of Brexit on March 29.
European Commission president Jean-claude Juncker, who had cancelled travel plans in order to be in Brussels for the aftermath of the vote today, voiced “regret” at the defeat of what he termed “the best possible deal”.
And 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?”
In a statement to the Commons immediately after her drubbing, the prime minister told MPS: “It is clear that this House does not support this deal, but tonight’s vote tells us nothing about what it does support.”
She said she would consult with Conservative colleagues, her DUP allies and senior Commons parliamentarians to identify “what now is required to secure the backing of the House”.
Mrs May assured MPS she was not seeking to run the clock down to a no-deal Brexit in March, insisting that she still hoped to take the UK out of the EU “in an orderly way, with a good deal”.
Mr Corbyn said: “She cannot seriously believe that after two years of failure, she is capable of negotiating a good deal for the people of this country.
“On the most important issue facing us, this government has lost the confidence of this House and this country.”
Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson said: “I was slightly surprised by the scale of the defeat, but I take no particular pleasure in it.”
He added that the vote gave Mrs May a “massive mandate” to go back to the EU and call for a new approach that would allow the UK to “properly take advantage of Brexit”.