Brexit still in limbo as PM scores 1 vote, loses another
LONDON — For a brief moment Tuesday, Brexit was within a British prime minister’s grasp.
Boris Johnson won Parliament’s backing for the substance of his Brexit deal but lost a key vote on its timing, a result that inches him closer to his goal of leading his country out of the European Union — but effectively guarantees it won’t happen on the scheduled date of Oct. 31.
The good news for the prime minister was that lawmakers — for the first time since Britons chose in 2016 to leave the EU — voted in principle for a Brexit plan, backing 329299 a bill to implement the agreement Johnson struck with the EU last week.
But minutes later, legislators rejected his fasttrack timetable to pass the bill, saying they needed more time to scrutinize it. The vote went 322-308 against the government.
Tuesday’s votes plunges the tortuous Brexit process back into grimly familiar territory: acrimonious uncertainty.
Without speedy passage of the bill, Britain won’t be able to make an orderly exit from the bloc Oct. 31, the central vow of Johnson’s three-month-old administration.
Johnson hailed the fact that “for the first time in this long saga this House has actually accepted its responsibilities together, come together, and embraced a deal.”
Johnson had hoped to push the l egislation t hrough t he House of Commons by Thursday. But he said after the defeat that he would “pause” the bill until t he EU had decided whether to agree to delay Britain’s departure.
Earlier, Johnson had said he might call a vote on holding a snap general election if Parliament blocked his plans — in the hopes of breaking the political deadlock over Brexit that has dragged on as lawmakers have squabbled over the country’s departure terms. But he’s likely to wait to hear from the EU on the delay before deciding whether to push for an election.
On Tuesday night, European Council President Donald Tusk said in a tweet that he would recommend that the bloc grant Britain’s request for an extension of the Oct. 31 deadline. He did not say how long a delay he would recommend.
With the Brexit deadline looming, Johnson last week grudgingly asked the bloc for three more months to comply with a law passed by Parliament ordering the government to postpone Brexit rather than risk the economic damage that could come from a no-deal exit.
Any delay will still require the agreement of all of the other 27 EU member states, and they are weary of the long-running Brexit saga. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told French lawmakers that he sees “no justification” at this stage for a further delay.
But they also want to avoid the economic pain on both sides of the Channel that would come from a chaotic British exit.
Johnson said he would “speak to EU member states about their intentions.”
Before Tuesday’s vote, he said: “I will in no way allow months more of this.”