Theresa May suffers another huge defeat
LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday suffered another defeat in parliament over her Brexit strategy, just 43 days before Britain is due to leave the European Union, undermining her negotiating strength in talks with the EU to secure changes to the agreement.
Lawmakers voted by 303 to 258 to reject a motion asking them to reaffirm support for May’s plan to seek changes to her Brexit deal. Many pro-Brexit members of her Conservative Party planned to abstain on the vote as they feared she was softening her position on a no-deal departure.
Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said the defeat “shows there is no majority for the PM’s course of action in dealing with Brexit”.
“She cannot keep on just running down the clock and hoping that something will turn up that will save her day and save her face,” he said of May, who was not in parliament for the defeat.
The British government on Friday dismissed as a “hiccup” its latest parliamentary defeat over Brexit, saying it would keep trying to renegotiate its EU divorce deal just six weeks before exit day.
But senior minister Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the House of Commons, conceded that the setback might affect the ongoing talks with the EU.
Leading pro-Brexit MP Liam Fox had earlier warned colleagues that defeat would raise doubts about whether a renegotiated deal could get through parliament, making the bloc less likely to make an offer.
“Our European partners will be watching our debate and listening today to see if they get the impression that if they were to make those concessions parliament would definitely deliver,” trade minister Fox told BBC Radio 4.
“There’s a danger that we send the wrong signals.”
British MPs roundly rejected May’s initial deal last month, but later parliamentary votes suggested a slim majority for her deal if she could get rid of the so-called “backstop” clause intended to keep the border with the Republic of Ireland free-flowing.
Some fear the measure could leave Britain trapped in EU trade rules indefinitely with no withdrawal mechanism.
British officials have since held a series of meetings with EU counterparts, who have ruled out reopening negotiations.
“The talks are at a crucial stage. We now all need to hold our nerve to get the changes this house requires and deliver Brexit on time,” May told lawmakers on Feb 12.
“Having secured an agreement with the EU for further talks, we now need some time to complete that process,” she said.
The announcement was seen by political commentators as an attempt to stave off the threat of parliamentary rebellion, with MPs now having to wait until Feb 27 for another series of votes on what to do if no agreement is reached.
Business leaders and economists have warned of shock waves around the continent if no transition deal is in place when Britain leaves the EU.
Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer accused May of deliberately wasting time to ramp up pressure to pass her deal, and warned that MPs would not let her leave without a deal.
Ronan McCrea, professor of constitutional and European law at University College London, said that Thursday’s defeat made May’s ongoing negotiations with Brussels “even more impossible”.
“They will rightly say ‘well, how do we know that any concessions we give won’t be followed by further concessions, because we don’t know that you can get anything through parliament’,” he added.