Brexit deal still in limbo as May refuses to name new date for MPS to vote
The UK’S exit deal from the EU remains in limbo despite the Prime Minister’s escape from an attempt to force her from office, with no date for MPS to vote on the agreement and signs of fresh unhappiness in government over its contents.
International Trade Secretary Liam Fox suggested that the Cabinet may not give its blessing for the deal to be put before MPS unless Theresa May wins new concessions from the EU over the Irish border backstop.
The Prime Minister’s DUP allies contradicted Downing Street’s claims that progress had been made on the backstop following a meeting between Mrs May and Arlene Foster to update the DUP leader on the Prime Minister’s whistle-stop tour of European capitals earlier in the week.
Labour and the SNP accused Mrs May of treating parliament with contempt as they failed to secure a commitment to reschedule a scrapped vote on the Brexit deal before Christmas.
Mrs May was told by EU leaders and the premiers of the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland that the withdrawal agreement which includes the backstop insurance policy to keep the Irish border open will not be renegotiated.
Asked whether the deal could ever pass the Commons without changes, Mr Fox said: “I think it is very difficult to support the deal if we don’t get changes to the backstop.
“I’m not even sure if the cabinet will agree for it to be put to the House of Commons.” Mr Fox is understood to be among a group of several Brexiteers who did not back the deal after it was agreed in Brussels.
Following a meeting on Wednesday amid the chaos of the Tory leadership challenge, Ms Foster said that “tinkering around the edges would not work”.
“We were not seeking assurances or promises,” the DUP leader said. “We wanted fundamental legal text changes.”
Ms Foster added: “The DUP wants a sensible deal which our MPS can support in the House. Over the coming weeks, we will continue to work towards that.”
While she said there was no need for a new Prime Minister, Ms Foster hinted that she could back Home Secretary and potential Tory leadership hopeful Sajid Javid, who she said “understands” the DUP’S concerns about the Irish backstop.
At Prime Minister’s Questions, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford demanded that the so-called “meaningful vote” due to have taken place on Tuesday be held before the House of Commons rises next week.
Mr Blackford told the Prime Minister to “do the right thing [and] resign”.
Mrs May told MPS she has “made some progress” with European leaders and claimed Labour was the party of “no plan, no clue, no Brexit.”
Mr Corbyn repeatedly pushed the PM to hold a vote on her Brexit deal and said the “sorry saga” is frustrating businesses,
By Eva Oer Germans eye up the chaos of British politics in disbelief
workers and Tory MPS.
The Labour leader said the outcome of last night’s confidence vote would do “nothing to solve the government’s inability” to get a Brexit deal that works for the UK.
Mrs May said MPS would get a say on the Brexit deal before a deadline of 21 January, but when pressed on the date, she said: “We had a meaningful vote in the referendum in 2016 and, if he wants a meaningful date, I will give him one: 29 March, 2019, when we leave the European Union.”
The Labour leader said that was “totally and utterly unacceptable to this House”.
Mr Blackford piled further pressure on the Prime Minister, telling her she was being “contemptuous of parliament”
At Holyrood, Brexit secretary Mike Russell said Scotland must not be forced to “pay
the price” for the decision taken to leave the EU.
Mr russell said :“why should people in Scotland have to pay the price of such a catastrophic policy that they do not support, which will harm their life chances and opportunities for generations to come?
“Put bluntly, if we cannot save the UK from itself, we must find a way to save ourselves from the UK.
“Scotland does deserve better. No reasonable person looking at the clusterburach at Westminster this week can deny that.”
European Council president Donald Tusk has said Mrs May will get a chance to “update” EU leaders on Brexit at a summit today before they “adopt relevant conclusions” in her absence.
There’s one word Germans overwhelmingly use to describe the situation in Westminster and that word is chaos.
Even before Tory MPS triggered a vote of no confidence, people in Berlin, Munich or Hamburg were looking to London in disbelief.
Why would Theresa May be going on a Euro tour, visiting Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte and the German chancellor Angela Merkel, when EU officials – as well as EU heads of member states – had already reiterated there was no chance for any renegotiation?
Mrs Merkel once again repeated it in the German Bundestag yesterday: “We don’t have the intention to change the Withdrawal Agreement. That’s the general position of the 27 member states.”
From a German perspective, it seems hard to grasp that a group of rebellious MPS would contest their leader in the crunch time leading up to a potentially deeply disrupting event.
Even German government officials echo the confusion many Germans feel about British politics. “I don’t think anyone can foresee the further course of events,” German economy minister Peter Altmaier was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters.
He emphasised his commitment in limiting the negative effects Brexit is going to have on the economy on both sides.
German business leaders, meanwhile, raised the alarm about the risk of a no-deal Brexit.
The influential business lobby group BDI spoke out on the delayed vote, saying it was increasing insecurities within the economy. Companies would still have to prepare for a disorderly exit of the EU, BDI’S head Joachim Lang said.
The head of the German BDA employers association Ingo Kramer told the German newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine yesterday: “I fear that whole industries in Great Britain could get into existential economic distress.”
He also stressed that the looming crisis would hit the United Kingdom harder than other economies such as Germany’s.