UK lawmakers assert final say on Brexit deal, challenge govt
LONDON — British lawmakers delivered a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plans Wednesday by giving Parliament the final say on any exit agreement the government reaches with the European Union.
The House of Commons voted 309-305 to give lawmakers what is essentially a veto on the terms of Brexit, a challenge to May’s fragile authority amid the already strained disentanglement process.
A dozen lawmakers from the prime minister’s governing Conservative Party sided with the opposition to insist that any withdrawal deal with the EU requires an Act of Parliament to take effect.
May had promised lawmakers a “meaningful vote” on the departure agreement, but political opponents, and some within her party, said her assurance was not enough of a guarantee.
This vote was the government’s first defeat in Parliament on its Brexit legislation.
It came as an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill, the government’s flagship piece of Brexit legislation. The bill itself, which still is moving through Parliament, would convert some 12,000 EU laws into British statute on the day the U.K. leaves the bloc in March 2019. Without it, Britain could face a legal black hole the day after Brexit.
The government said it was disappointed with the result and would see whether changes were now needed to the “essential” legislation.
If the amendment survives a final vote on the withdrawal bill, it would not have a direct impact on Britain’s negotiations with the EU. However, it could reinforce perceptions in the bloc that May lacks authority.
Pro-EU Conservative lawmaker Dominic Grieve, who drafted the amendment, said it ensured Parliament did not give the government a “blank check” on Brexit.
Earlier Wednesday, European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said there will be “no turning back” for Britain on commitments made during an initial divorce deal between the two, after his U.K. counterpart insisted it was merely a “statement of intent.”
Barnier told legislators at the European Parliament that the negotiations so far have been “extremely complex and extraordinary” but insisted that he had made no concessions to the British side.
U.K. negotiator David Davis suggested over the weekend that the deal was less than cast in stone. The initial deal involved the maintenance of a transparent border between EU member Ireland and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland, as well as citizens’ rights.
But Barnier said “progress has been noted and recorded and is going to have to be translated into a legally binding withdrawal agreement” on
The European Parliament’s chief Brexit official, Guy Verhofstadt, said Davis was already backtracking after his statement Sunday, which riled officials in Brussels.
Verhofstadt said he and Davis had spoken on Tuesday and that Davis “assured me it is absolutely not his intention, not the intention of the U.K. government, to backtrack on their commitments.
“The best way to secure this is that in the coming weeks we transpose all these commitments into the legal text of a withdrawal agreement,” he said.
Most of the legislature had warm words for Barniers’ performance in running a tight ship during the talks and keeping the 27 other EU nations united in their stance.