MAY'S LAST ROLL OF THE DICE
Facing a humiliating defeat on her Brexit vote which could have toppled her, PM is forced into dramatic climbdown – and a last-ditch tour of Europe to salvage her deal. So is this...
THERESA May embarked on a last-ditch mission to salvage her Brexit deal last night.
Hours after the humiliation of scrapping a Commons vote on her withdrawal agreement, she headed off on a frantic tour of European capitals. The Prime Minister will first meet her Dutch opposite number Mark Rutte for breakfast to try to win concessions on the controversial customs backstop. She will then travel to Berlin to plead with Angela Merkel before potentially travelling to Brussels for further talks with Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker.
Mrs May decided to delay tonight’s planned vote to avert a catastrophic defeat at the hands of hardliners in her own party.
In shambolic scenes, news of the Uturn came just 24 minutes after Downing Street confirmed the vote was going ahead. no new date has been given.
In a three-hour session with MPs, the Prime Minister denied she had ‘bottled it’ but accepted she had been facing a significant defeat.
ominously, Mr Tusk, who is the EU
council president, said he was not interested in reopening the Brexit deal agreed with Mrs May only last month.
And in the Commons, hardline Eurosceptics warned they would not support the deal unless the Irish backstop was abandoned altogether – a move specifically ruled out by Brussels and Dublin.
Mrs May told MPs she believed EU leaders were open to discussion about the idea of providing reassurances that the backstop, which critics fear could leave the UK locked in a customs union against its will, would only be temporary. In other key developments: Business leaders rounded on Parliament over its failure to agree on Brexit, warning the threat of no deal would damage the economy;
The pound fell, closing down almost two cents against the dollar;
The PM said preparations for a no-deal Brexit would be stepped up, while warning it ‘would cause significant economic damage to parts of our country who can least afford to bear the burden’;
David Cameron said he was ‘very concerned’ by the chaos but did not regret calling the 2016 referendum;
Hardline Eurosceptics stepped up their threats to oust Mrs May via a confidence vote;
The DUP’s deputy leader Nigel Dodds branded the Government his party is propping up a ‘shambles’;
The DUP’s Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson said he was in discussion with Labour about a possible ‘vote of censure’ over Mrs May’s decision to defer the vote;
Nicola Sturgeon called on Jeremy Corbyn to lodge a vote of no confidence in the Government. Labour suggested it would wait until Mrs May returned from negotiations in Brussels but SNP Westminster leader Iain Blackford said it could trigger the vote if necessary;
Mrs May told MPs they had to decide if they ‘want to deliver Brexit’ – and said it was time for those proposing a second referendum or no deal to be honest about the downsides;
Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar suggested he would not budge on the backstop, saying the existing deal is ‘the only agreement on the table’;
The European Court of Justice ruled Britain could cancel Brexit unilaterally.
Tory sources yesterday said Mrs May had reluctantly agreed to delay the Brexit vote after being warned that up to 100 Conservative MPs planned to vote against it, condemning her to a potentially career-ending defeat.
A string of ministers, led by Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, had spent days warning her not to proceed. The delay was confirmed during an emergency conference call of Cabinet ministers at 11.30am and quickly leaked – minutes after a spokesman for the Prime Minister had insisted to journalists that the vote was going ahead.
A Cabinet source said there was an ‘air of resignation’ among ministers about the Brexit deadlock.
‘She had to delay the vote, but it leaves us in a dreadful position,’ said one source. ‘No one really knows what she wants or has much confidence she can salvage this thing. But it’s the worst possible time for a leadership contest.’
Asked if the SNP would trigger a no confidence vote, the party’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford said: ‘We have the option to do so, I think it is far better that Labour take that initiative. If it is not the case, we have to make sure that at the right time we are prepared, if necessary, to take appropriate action.’
Jacob Rees-Mogg, who led last month’s aborted attempt to unseat the Prime Minister, yesterday accused her of presiding over a national humiliation.
But it is far from clear that hardline Eurosceptics have the numbers to force a confidence vote or leadership contest.
Last night, Whitehall sources acknowledged there was little chance of negotiating a breakthrough this week, meaning any vote is likely to be delayed until at least January 7.
Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: ‘Firms are looking on with utter dismay at the ongoing saga in Westminster.’
‘In a dreadful position’
FOR months (and yes we know it must have felt like years) the Mail has passionately argued that Theresa May’s much-derided deal is the only viable Brexit option on the table.
It’s far from perfect but, as we have consistently said, it offers the best way to deliver the Brexit the people voted for and for which this paper campaigned.
Vast swathes of the country, as recent polling shows, agree with us. But that Brexit – indeed any form of Brexit – is in grave danger of being crushed by self-regarding MPs who put their own vanity and ambition before the national interest.
For make no mistake, this is Mrs May’s last throw of the dice. Those MPs who reject her plan for an orderly Brexit should be careful what they wish for. The alternative could be chaos.
With the Parliamentary arithmetic stacked so heavily against her, the Prime Minister’s decision yesterday to delay voting on her deal, pending fresh discussions with European leaders about how to solve the dilemma of the Northern Ireland ‘backstop’, was inevitable.
In a day of high drama, she faced down a fractious and unruly Commons. Through the din, she spoke with clarity and composure, maintaining her usual dignity throughout.
If only the same could have been said of her opponents. At times it seemed Mrs May was the only grown-up in the House.
There was constant braying from the Labour benches and her own rebels, infantile mockery from the SNP and a bizarre, incoherent rant from Jeremy Corbyn, who came across as little more than a rambling, cantankerous old man.
Then there was Jacob Rees-Mogg, supposedly a model of good manners, who was already tweeting that his leader should resign before she had even sat down (so much for old-fashioned courtesy).
Even Remain-supporting Speaker John Bercow got in on the act. Instead of trying to help the House move quickly towards a procedural solution, he tried to cajole the Government into having a wholly unnecessary vote on the deferral – which would have served only to delay matters still further.
All in all, a truly unedifying spectacle. Is it any wonder the ordinary voting public’s opinion of our politicians is so low?
So what now? From tonight, the resolute Mrs May will undertake a whistle-stop tour of visits to EU leaders.
She has spoken to some already, and believes they are ‘open to discussion’ on the idea of providing fresh assurances on the Irish border.
But the truth is we are approaching the endgame for Mrs May’s deal and seeing it through remains a daunting task.
In Parliament yesterday, she threw down the gauntlet to the wreckers, on both sides of the political divide, who have tried to thwart her plan at every turn.
‘Does this House want to deliver Brexit?’ she asked. ‘Because there will be no enduring or successful Brexit without compromise on both sides.’ If you have a better plan, she added, let’s see it.
And there is the heart of the matter. As we have said often in this column, the May deal is the only one on the table. And with just over 100 days until we leave the EU, the clock is fast running down.
The Prime Minister goes to Brussels on Thursday in good faith in a genuine attempt to solve this truly perilous, dangerous impasse. With a no-deal disaster looming ever larger, the EU would be foolhardy to ignore her warnings.
And on her return, MPs must examine any new safeguards she brings back with an open mind – rather than the deeply unpatriotic cynicism so many of them have shown so far.