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Before a Crucial Brexit Vote, Bad News for Theresa May Theresa May’s Second Brexit Defeat Plunges Britain Into Crisis
(about 4 hours later)
LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union was hanging by a thread on Tuesday after the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, said that last-minute pledges from the bloc did not fundamentally alter the legal status of the agreement that pro-Brexit lawmakers find so objectionable. LONDON — Britain hurtled into unknown political territory on Tuesday when Parliament rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan to quit the European Union for a second time, leaving her authority in tatters and the country seemingly rudderless just 17 days before its planned departure from the bloc.
[Follow the day’s events here.] Mrs. May had hoped that last-minute concessions from the European Union would swing the vote in her favor, but many lawmakers dismissed those changes as ineffectual or cosmetic and voted against the deal by 391 to 242.
After the vote, the prime minister defended her agreement as the “best outcome” for the United Kingdom and betrayed her frustration in addressing the lawmakers, who are scheduled to vote later this week on whether to seek an extension to leave the bloc.
[Follow updates on what happened during the day of the vote.]
“Let me be clear that voting against leaving without a deal and for an extension does not solve the problems we face,” Mrs. May said. “The E.U. will want to know what use we mean to make of such an extension and the House will have to answer that question.”
Did Parliament want to remain in the European Union, she asked, or hold a second referendum? Or leave with some other deal?
“These are unenviable choices,” she said, “but thanks to the decision the House has made this evening, they are choices that must now be faced.”
The outcome, while expected, deepened an already profound crisis over the biggest peacetime decision to confront a British government in decades.
Mrs. May, who was forced to argue for her plan in a croaking voice because of a head cold, has essentially ceded control of events to Parliament, at least for now, with important votes upcoming on whether to bar a no-deal Brexit and whether to request the extension, something many analysts say is now inevitable.
In another admission of her weakness, Mrs. May announced after the vote that she would allow Conservative lawmakers to vote as they saw fit, without a party directive, on a no-deal Brexit.
The defeat also threatens Mrs. May’s hold on her office. Under party rules she cannot be challenged for the leadership by Tory lawmakers until December. But there is always the risk of a cabinet coup if she mishandles the next steps.
“The thing about this drama is that it is both chronic and acute,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “It has been going on for months, we have had so many near death experiences, and I can’t remember a time when so much has happened for so long and the tension has been so heightened.”
“We are in unchartered territory, anything could happen and in some ways the government has run out of road,” Mr. Bale added.
Mrs. May now faces a number of possible options, none of them particularly palatable. She might still try one last time to force her deal through, perhaps at the end of the very month, but in the meantime will face pressure to change course.
Some lawmakers want to take nonbinding votes on various alternatives to Mrs. May’s Brexit plans, like those that would keep closer economic ties to the bloc similar to those enjoyed by Norway.
There is discussion about a second referendum to confirm public support for a Brexit deal as against remaining in the European Union. The opposition Labour Party now says it would potentially support some form of plebiscite.
But Mrs. May has been implacably opposed to a second vote, saying it would not solve the problem.
More realistically, there is speculation about the possibility of a general election to change the composition of a logjammed Parliament. Though he was skeptical about the possibility, Mr. Bale said it could not be discounted completely, particularly since opinion polls show the Conservatives with a comfortable lead over on Labour.
“If Theresa May really has not got anything left in the locker, and the E.U. doesn’t seem willing to give her a second chance, you could see why some members of Parliament — seeing the Conservatives have opened up a lead against Labour — might think: ‘O.K., this is a do or die moment.’ ”
The Conservatives had a healthy lead on Labour in 2017, which is why Mrs. May called the snap election that turned out so disastrously with the loss of her Parliamentary majority.
In theory, if there is no agreement by March 29, Britain should depart the European Union without any formal deal. But Britain is ill-prepared for a disorderly and potentially chaotic exit, and lawmakers are so alarmed at that prospect that they voted in January against such an outcome in a nonbinding motion. Parliament will get that chance again in a vote on Wednesday that will count.
Yet, while a clear majority opposes a “no deal” Brexit, a small number of hard-liners still believe they can extract more concessions from Brussels by threatening that very outcome, which could damage continental economies.
So Parliament remains stuck, largely as it has been for almost two years, since Mrs. May lost a parliamentary majority in a snap election. The difference is that now there is very little time to chart a new path.
While Parliament is expected to support an extension in the Brexit negotiations, the question will be for how long and to what purpose. All European Union leaders would have to agree to extra time for Brexit and, when they meet on March 21, they will want to know the reasoning behind any request.
On Monday Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, argued that, in any event, Brexit should occur before May 23, the day of elections to the European Parliament.
For legal reasons, any extension beyond this date might require Britain to take part in that contest, he suggested. That is something most British politicians do not want to contemplate.
Tuesday had begun with some mild optimism from Mrs. May’s allies after last-minute concessions, agreed to with the European Union on Monday night in Strasbourg, France. These were given a cautious initial response by pro-Brexit rebels who promised to study the details overnight.
But the mood darkened when the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, said on Tuesday morning the last-minute pledges from the bloc did not fundamentally alter the legal status of one aspect of the agreement that pro-Brexit lawmakers find particularly objectionable.
As Mr. Cox’s opinion reverberated through British politics, Mrs. May suffered another damaging loss when legal analysts for the influential European Research Group, a cohort of Conservative, pro-Brexit lawmakers, said they would “not recommend accepting the government’s motion today.”As Mr. Cox’s opinion reverberated through British politics, Mrs. May suffered another damaging loss when legal analysts for the influential European Research Group, a cohort of Conservative, pro-Brexit lawmakers, said they would “not recommend accepting the government’s motion today.”
The 10 lawmakers from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, whose support allowed Mrs. May to form a government, also announced their opposition to her plan. Then 10 lawmakers from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, whose support allowed Mrs. May to form a government, also announced their opposition to her plan.
That made the defeat of Mrs. May’s plan all but certain, analysts said, with the only remaining question being its severity. Taken together, the body blows to the government threw Britain into a new period of political uncertainty, raising the possibility of Parliament trying to take control of the process in a further diminishing of Mrs. May’s shaky authority. In explaining his decision, Mr. Cox said the concessions from the bloc did “reduce the risk” of Britain being trapped indefinitely in the so-called Irish backstop. That is an insurance policy against a hard border in Ireland that is a central issue for opponents of Mrs. May’s deal because they think it could trap Britain inside the European Union’s economic rule book.
In another ominous sign, Mrs. May spoke in a painfully hoarse and croaking voice as she addressed Parliament, where there was a visible lack of support from her own benches, which were less than full. But Mr. Cox concluded Britain would have “no internationally lawful means of exiting the protocol’s arrangements, save by agreement,” he said.
In explaining his decision, Mr. Cox said the concessions from the bloc did “reduce the risk” of Britain being trapped indefinitely in the so-called Irish backstop — an insurance policy against a hard border in Ireland that is a central issue for opponents of Mrs. May’s deal.
But he said that the understanding did not alter the two parties’ rights and obligations. Even under the new terms, Britain would have “no internationally lawful means of exiting the protocol’s arrangements, save by agreement,” he said.
Reaction in Brussels was generally muted. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said that the bloc had gone as far as it could to accommodate Britain.
“Clear, far-reaching proposals have been made that take into account the concerns of Britain and that seek to find answers to them,” Mrs. Merkel said, adding that it was now up to the British Parliament to decide how to go forward.
Mrs. May had flown to Strasbourg, France, on Monday to negotiate changes to the withdrawal agreement, hoping to win concessions that would persuade British lawmakers to reverse the overwhelming rejection of the deal they delivered in January.
The assurances she obtained were intended to help bridge the gap on the confusing and thus far intractable issue of the border between Ireland, which is a member of the European Union, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, but it was unclear whether her efforts would be sufficient.
Speaking late Monday in Strasbourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, warned that the British could not expect any further concessions. “There will be no further interpretation of the interpretation,” he said. “No further assurances on the reassurances if the meaningful vote fails tomorrow.”
The 650-seat British Parliament, which rejected Mrs. May’s previous deal by 230 votes, is scheduled to vote on the revised agreement around 7 p.m. in London. At stake is the fate of the withdrawal agreement and a political declaration that would allow Britain to leave the bloc on March 29 with a standstill transition period, during which very little would change until the end of 2020.
Late on Monday, Mrs. May’s de facto deputy, David Lidington, appealed to Parliament to endorse the proposals, arguing that the alternative would be to “plunge this country into a political crisis.”
If Britain leaves the European Union without an agreement — the so-called no-deal Brexit — the consequences could be dire, with fears of clogged ports and shortages of some food and medicine.
British lawmakers have been promised that, if they reject Mrs. May’s plans on Tuesday, they will be offered two more votes later this week. The first vote would allow lawmakers to formally state that they oppose a no-deal Brexit.
A majority of lawmakers do not want Britain to leave the European Union without an agreement, and if they reject the idea of departing under a no-deal scenario, they would then have the opportunity to instruct Mrs. May to seek a postponement of the March 29 exit date.
The assurances offered by Mr. Juncker were designed to reassure pro-Brexit lawmakers who fear that Britain could be trapped indefinitely inside parts of the European Union’s economic rule book and prevented from striking independent trade deals.
The new pledges in the “joint instrument” clarified the temporary nature of the Irish backstop provision, which is part of the withdrawal agreement. The European Union has demanded the backstop as an insurance policy to prevent the creation of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Mr. Juncker said that the latest legal tweak “complements the withdrawal agreement without reopening it.” That proved not to be enough for pro-Brexit lawmakers, who have pushed for the backstop to be eliminated completely or for Britain to be given a time limit or the right to abandon it unilaterally.
But the assurances did give a clearer picture of how Britain might be able to exit the backstop if there were an impasse over the matter.
Iain Duncan Smith, a pro-Brexit lawmaker and former Conservative Party leader, told the BBC that a panel of euroskeptic legal experts would consider the plans and determine whether they matched Mrs. May’s claims.
But he also appealed for more time to consider the legal niceties. “I certainly think an extra day would help enormously,” he said.