Brexit - how did we get here and what might happen next?
THE road to Brexit began on June 9, 2015.
This is when legislation approving plans for a Brexit referendum received its second reading in the House of Commons.
Bills are “read” three times in both the Commons and the Lords before they become law, but the first reading is a formality. The second reading is when there’s a real vote.
Former Tory Prime Minister David Cameron wanted the referendum to pacify anti-eu rebels in his own party, and convince eurosceptic voters to stick with the Tories instead of backing UKIP.
But Labour and Conservative MPS joined forces to support the legislation when the time came.
MPS voted by 544 to 53 in favour of holding the referendum, and all 53 votes against came from SNP MPS.
It was a similar story when the Bill received its third and final reading in the Commons, except this time one solitary Labour MP voted against it - Bolsover MP Dennis Skinner.
Once the referendum was over and done with, there was another big vote for MPS to consider.
Voters had told the nation’s politicians they wanted to leave the EU.
But that didn’t mean it would happen automatically.
Instead, the United Kingdom had to give notice to the EU that it planned to leave, under rules set out in Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, a treaty enacted by EU member states in 2009.
This is often known as “triggering Article 50”. The rules state that once you begin the process, you quit two years later.
The Supreme Court ruled that the British government didn’t have the power to trigger Article 50 on its own. It needed to consult MPS first.
So the Government produced legislation giving it the power to go ahead with Brexit, called the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill.
Votes were duly held, with the Bill getting its third reading on February 8 2017.
And once again, the Commons backed the Government, with 494 MPS voting in favour and 122 voting against.
The Labour leadership ordered its MPS to back the legislation - but 52 refused to vote with the Tories.
Most Labour MPS, however, did as they were told.
There was one Clarke.
Theresa May triggered Article 50 on March 29. It meant the countdown had begun - we were leaving the EU by March 29 2019, ready or not. But what would happen then? Most people agreed that the UK couldn’t just walk out. We needed a withdrawal agreement with the EU, to ensure that trade across the Channel could continue and Brits could still holiday in France.
But we had two years to agree a deal. How hard could it be?
Brexiteers began to fear that people were undermining Brexit, and a group of 72 MPS condemned the BBC for its “unfair” and “pessimistic” coverage.
Theresa May herself claimed, in April 2017, that divisions Conservative rebel, Ken over Brexit were undermining attempts to obtain a good deal. This is why, she said, she needed to call an early general election, to be held on June 8. What a blunder! Mrs May’s real motivation for calling the election was probably the civil war waging in the Labour Party, which she believed would deliver her a landslide win. Instead, she lost her majority. From this point on, she would be dependent on the support of 10 MPS from the DUP, the unionist party in Northern Ireland, to stay in office. That would prove to be a real problem once it became clear that the EU would only agree to a Brexit deal that guaranteed there would be no hard border between Ireland and the UK. The DUP’S great fear is that this will lead eventually to some sort of border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, an outcome they are determined to avoid. Right now, the DUP are threatening to bring down Theresa May’s government if she does somehow succeed in convincing MPS to accept the only withdrawal agreement the EU is willing to offer. The truth is that from June 2017 general election to the publication of Theresa May’s proposed Brexit agreement in the second half of 2018, remarkably little happened. There was plenty of debate in Parliament and the media. Some the UK’S people warned Brexit would be a disaster, while others claimed the sceptics were wreckers or traitors.
But it was all talk, until Mrs May unveiled her proposed withdrawal agreement at her Chequers residence in Buckinghamshire in July 2018.
She proposed a “free trade area” for good, and a “customs arrangement” allowing goods to flow freely, although many people questioned how this arrangement would work.
Her Cabinet colleagues appeared at first to back the plan, but it was soon clear that this was an illusion.
David Davis, the Brexit Secretary at the time, resigned. He was followed by Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary. And this was just the start of the resignations. In November, Mr Davis’ replacement as Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab, also resigned, to be followed by Work and Pensions Secretary Esther Mcvey.
The Prime Minister and her team have been unable to come up with a Brexit withdrawal agreement that is acceptable to many of her colleagues - or acceptable to MPS as a whole.
Mrs May was due to put her deal to the House of Commons on December 11, but announced at the last minute that she was cancelling the vote because she knew she would lose.
Instead, she said she would return to Brussels and try to get more concessions from EU leaders.
But there’s no sign of her achieving any success there.
The biggest problem is what’s become known as the Northern Ireland backstop. This is a promise that the UK will stay in the EU’S Customs Union if it proves to be the only way of