SO JUST WHAT DO MPS WANT?

Fiasco as Commons rejects ALL eight Brexit alternatives

A BACKBENCH plot to snatch control of Brexit resulted in chaos last night as none of the alternatives to Theresa May’s deal secured a majority of support from MPs.

In an unprecedented move, politicians seized control of the Commons timetable to hold so-called indicative votes.

MPs were handed green ballot papers on which they voted Yes or No to eight options, ranging from No Deal to cancelling Brexit altogether. However, the votes descended into shambles as MPs rejected each and every one of the proposals.

A plan for the UK to remain in a customs union was narrowly defeated by 272 votes to 264, while a second referendum was rejected by 295 votes to 268.

Ten Tories – including ministers Sir Alan Duncan, Mark Field and Stephen Hammond – supported an SNP plan to give MPs the chance to revoke Article 50 if a deal has not been agreed two days before Brexit. Some 60 Tory MPs backed the option of remaining in the single market.

Shadow housing minister Melanie Onn resigned after Jeremy Corbyn ordered his MPs to back a raft of soft Brexit plans, as well as a second referendum.

Some 27 Labour MPs defied the whip to reject a so-called ‘confirmatory vote’ on any Brexit deal. The party had instructed them to support the plan just hours after one of its senior frontbenchers publicly warned that it would be a mistake.

Sir Oliver Letwin, the architect of the Commons move, last night insisted the indicative votes were not intended to give a precise answer right away.

MPs will take control of the Commons order paper again on Monday, so they can narrow down the options if Mrs May’s deal has not been agreed by then – or pass legislation to try and impose their choice on her. Speaking in the Commons after the results, Sir Oliver said: ‘It is of course a great disappointment that the House has not chosen to find a majority for any proposition.

‘However, those of us who put this proposal forward as a way of proceeding predicted that we would not even reach a majority and for that very reason put forward a ... motion designed to reconsider these matters on Monday.’

The Prime Minister allowed her MPs to vote however they wanted on the choices after she was warned around ten junior ministers would quit if they were whipped against backing a soft Brexit.

She and the Cabinet abstained on the indicative votes, helping her to mask the wide gaping divisions among her senior ministers on the way forward.

Commons Speaker John Bercow selected eight out of the 16 Brexit options tabled by MPs for a vote, turning down proposals to demand a unilateral right to leave the Northern Irish ‘backstop ‘ or to require automatic revocation of Article 50 if No Deal is reached. He also rejected the so- called Malthouse Compromise Plan A – drawn up by backbenchers from Leave and Remain wings of the Tory Party – which would have implemented Mrs May’s deal with the backstop replaced by ‘alternative arrangements’.

Ahead of the votes, Mrs May warned she would not regard the results as binding. But former Tory chancellor Ken Clarke yesterday told BBC Radio 5 Live the Prime Minister ‘would obviously have to be removed’ if she ignored a consensus emerging from the indicative votes process.

Labour ordered its MPs to back a motion, tabled by former foreign secretary Dame Margaret Beckett, requiring any Brexit deal passed during this Parliament to be confirmed in a public referendum before ratification. The party also whipped its MPs to back its own alternative Brexit plan – but four Labour backbenchers voted against it. Three others – including party chairman Ian Lavery – voted for a ‘managed’ No Deal. Mr Corbyn had also encouraged his MPs to back the so- called Common Market 2.0 plan tabled by Mr Clarke – which would keep the country in the single market as well as a customs arrangement – but did not whip them to do so.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Mrs May criticised the Labour leader over his support for a customs union and a second referendum. She said: ‘Whatever happened to straight-talking honest politics?’ In a tweet, the Department for Exiting the European Union warned that the Common Market 2.0 plan ‘would not respect the referendum result’.

‘[It] would not end free movement of people, would not let us set our own trade policy, would not stop us sending money to the EU, [and] would make us a rule taker,’ the message added.

A number of Tory MPs refused to take part in the votes. Aldershot MP Leo Docherty said none of the options presented a ‘coherent path towards Brexit’. He tweeted: ‘This is an exercise in Parliamentary navel-gazing and I will be abstaining.’ Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom earlier warned that MPs had turned the normal ‘precedent on its head’ by taking control of the order paper, which sets out the parliamentary timetable for the day. She said: ‘Those who are not in government are deciding the business, and there are inevitable ramifications to that.’

But former Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell said Sir Oliver had played ‘an absolute blinder’ by making clear to Brexiteers the consequences of continuing to oppose the PM’s deal. He said: ‘I think Sir Oliver Letwin has laid out for all my friends and colleagues in the ERG the instruments of torture, of what awaits them if they do not support Mrs May’s deal the next time it comes to a vote.’

‘Exercise in navel-gazing’ ‘Instruments of torture’