May’s Brexit deal is dead on arrival

The Guardian

The U.K. is heading for “an extraordinary Christmas crisis” over Brexit, said Matthew d’Ancona. Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet approved her deal on the terms of Britain’s exit from the European Union in mid-November, and this week the leaders of the EU’s 27 other member nations signed off on it as well. But the next hurdle, getting it through Britain’s Parliament in early December, is nearly impossible. Oh, sure, the government’s whips will use “every conceivable inducement” to cajole members of Parliament into supporting the pact, from dangling knighthoods to threatening to expose sexual indiscretions. But the arithmetic remains impossible. May needs the backing of 320

lawmakers, but her deal—despised by many members of her Conservative Party—has perhaps only 260 supporters. So the vote will fail, and political meltdown will follow. Hard-line Brexiteers, who want a clean break from Brussels instead of May’s slow divorce, will be emboldened. Other MPs will loudly offer their own solutions: that we follow Norway by staying in the EU’s single economic area or copy Canada with a limited free trade deal. But the EU will accept none of those alternatives. Meanwhile, those who want a second Brexit referendum will launch their campaign in earnest. “The variables are dizzying, the stakes vertiginous.” May’s government could fall before the year is out.