UK WARNED OF ‘UNATTRACTIVE CHOICES’ OVER BREXIT IMPASSE
▶ ‘This is no way to run a country’ say industrialists as next vote to be on stopping a ‘no-deal’ exit
The search for a new way to deliver Britain’s exit from the EU was under way yesterday as Parliament was presented with a vote to reject leaving without a deal in place with Brussels.
Parliament overwhelmingly rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposed withdrawal agreement on Tuesday over a backstop that would have obliged London to keep free trade arrangements on the Irish border.
The measure failed by 149 votes, the third-largest defeat for a sitting government. Despite a last-minute dash to Strasbourg for assurances on leaving the border commitments, the deal was sunk after legal advice that the situation had not changed. It was earlier defeated by 230 votes.
Opening the debate on the no-deal vote, Mrs May was forced to ask a Cabinet colleague Michael Gove to speak for the government.
Unless a resolution to the impasse was found, Britain would crash out of the EU in 15 days, Mr Gove said.
“That is an inescapable fact and that is why we face a series of unattractive choices,” he said.
Mr Gove, a leader in the leave campaign for the referendum in 2016, said there were constitutional consequences of a nodeal Brexit when voters were not told it could be an option.
And he said the lack of a devolved government in Northern Ireland would make it difficult to handle pledges under the 1998 peace agreement.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Philip Hammond said that leaving the EU without a deal would damage the British economy and leave people poorer.
Mr Hammond said that Parliament’s rejection of Mrs May’s Brexit deal had created a “cloud of uncertainty” and crashing out would cause “significant disruption”.
The chancellor unveiled a lower growth forecast for this year, cut to 1.2 per cent from 1.6 per cent as a result of the uncertainty.
“Last night’s vote leaves a cloud of uncertainty hanging over our economy,” Mr Hammond said. “The idea that some readily available fix to avoid the consequences of a no-deal Brexit is just wrong.”
The government detailed plans that would leave 87 per cent of all imports to the UK subject to tariffs, up from 80 per cent, in a no-deal Brexit on March 29. Officials said that was despite plans to impose temporarily lower tariffs on European goods.
Industry leaders were dismayed by the announcement.
“What we are hearing is the biggest change in terms of trade this country has faced since the mid-19th century,” said Carolyn Fairbairn, the head of the Confederation of British Industry. “This is no way to run a country.”
Britain’s newspapers were damning over the failures to secure a deal with the front page of the Daily Mail declaring “The House of Fools” had chosen to “plunge our despairing nation into chaos”.
With despair in Conservative ranks over Mrs May’s handling of Brexit, some politicians are demanding votes that would allow Parliament to choose between options and dictate the next phase of a delayed Brexit.
“She hasn’t allowed Parliament to explore what alternative compromises we might support,” said Nick Boles, a Conservative MP.
“People keep saying there is no majority for any compromise. We don’t know that. We’ve never been allowed to debate and vote on anything other than her deal.”
Europe’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said yesterday that it was up to the UK to come up with a new plan that could avert the threat of a nodeal Brexit.
Mr Barnier said the talks were “done and dusted” at his end.
“We are at a critical point. The risk of a no deal has never been higher,” he told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
The EU had said that Tuesday’s vote was the last opportunity to secure a negotiated deal on Britain’s departure.
There was despair in Conservative Party ranks over the Prime Minister’s handling of the Brexit process