The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
British leader May back in Brussels after her party bucks her on Brexit
British Prime Minister Theresa May is headed to a European summit that was set to approve the breakthrough victory in Brexit talks she celebrated last week. Instead, she arrives after a serious defeat at the hands of her own party.
Lawmakers voted 309 to 305 on Wednesday evening to change her government’s planned legislation so that it guarantees they will get a “meaningful vote” on the final deal to leave the European Union at the end of negotiations in 2019. And rather than the Brexit hard-liners who have so often undermined her, this time it was pro-Europeans who defected.
The embarrassing reversal for the beleaguered British leader raises questions about whether she can muster enough backing for her vision of Brexit, whose convulsions have dominated U.K. politics for 18 months. While the recent focus was on striking a palatable agreement with the EU on the initial terms of the divorce, the greater challenge has always been on the home front.
Lawmakers in the House of Commons will now have the power to veto the withdrawal treaty before the U.K. leaves the EU if they don’t like the terms. Another defeat looms next week over an amendment that could attract even more rebel backing.
“She has come back to earth with a bump after her success of last week,” said Mij Rahman, a political analyst at Eurasia Group in London. “This vote increases the prospect of the Commons rejecting May’s deal next October or November.”
Few people expect May to lose her job. What becomes
more likely is that the U.K. will leave the EU in less dramatic fashion than some of May’s ministers wanted and company executives had warned about, the no-deal or “cliff edge” scenario.
The rebels think the divorce process can be extended if needed — something the government rejects — and want to maintain closer ties with the EU.
The country voted 52 percent to 48 percent in June 2016 to abandon the bloc it joined in 1973, but a majority of lawmakers wanted to remain. They acknowledged the popular will by passing the motion to trigger the legal mechanism to leave, though exactly how to do it became the focal point of the argument.
The legislation May wanted to push through would have given her government sweeping powers to start implementing Brexit without parliamentary approval. May had argued that anything else would threaten the “orderly and smooth” Brexit she wants.
While Guy Verhofstadt, the
European Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, praised British democracy, Justice Minister Dominic Raab called it a “fairly minor setback.” He told the BBC that “it won’t frustrate the Brexit process.”
May defied expectations last week and brought home a divorce deal after managing negotiations on the apparently intractable issue of the open border between the U.K. province of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
An agreement was reached on the divorce bill and the rights of EU citizens so that talks could move on to a future trading relationship. Her team even boasted of winning concessions on the role of the European Court of Justice, which is toxic to euroskeptics.
May was to call on EU leaders Thursday about a quick transition deal for Brexit, a senior U.K. government official said. Britain wants the EU to agree that trading rules won’t change during a two-year phase lasting until 2021.
But then she must return to Parliament.