Brexit in chaos after 3rd vote on deal is blocked
LONDON — The speaker of Britain’s House of Commons, famous for his erudite put-downs and booming calls for “Order!” in Parliament, threw Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan to attempt to pass her Brexit deal again — on a third try, probably this week — into doubt Monday.
John Bercow said he would not allow the government to present May’s EU withdrawal agreement to the House for a third vote unless that deal was “substantially” different from the first two times it was voted down.
The ruling, which overturned May’s strategy to revive her Brexit deal at the 11th hour, appeared to blindside 10 Downing Street.
“The speaker did not forewarn us of the content of his statement or the fact that he was making one,” May’s spokeswoman, who by custom is not identified by name, told reporters.
Bercow’s ruling stoked further uncertainty about a process that has already been widely condemned as chaotic — and left lawmakers stunned and wondering aloud what comes next. Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union on March 29.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt had told the BBC on Monday morning that the government was hopeful there would be a third “meaningful vote” on Brexit on Tuesday.
Robert Buckland, the government’s solicitor general, said the ruling could have “huge reverberations” for the Brexit process. “We are in a major constitutional crisis here,” he told the BBC.
He suggested one way around the ruling would be to end the parliamentary session, start a new session, and then hold a vote on May’s Brexit deal.
“We are now talking about not just days but hours to the 29th of March. Frankly we could have done without this,” he said.
May suffered humiliating defeat in the two earlier votes.
In January, the 585-page withdrawal agreement she had spent two years negotiating with her European counterparts lost, 432 votes to 202 — with 118 members of her Conservative Party voting against her.
May then made a lastditch pitch to EU leaders to improve the deal. She succeeded in having some additional legal language attached to the agreement to calm jitters over how to handle the Irish border. But that second attempt also failed last week, 3912422.
The government was hoping that if May’s deal passed early this week, she would go to Brussels on Thursday and ask for a “technical extension” until the end of June. If her deal did not pass, she was planning to seek a longer delay.
May spent the weekend twisting arms and cajoling rebels in her party, as well as her governing allies in the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, to get enough votes to cross the finish line. She was also expected to need support from the opposition Labour Party, whose leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has threatened to call a no-confidence vote to bring down the government.
The prime minister has warned recalcitrant Tory lawmakers that if they do not pass the Brexit deal on offer, Britain will have to either leave the European Union with no deal or else delay departure by months, even years.