On 10 December, May called off the parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal with the European Union, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday. The prime minister has acknowledged that a significant number of lawmakers would not support the agreement, particularly its provisions concerning the Northern Ireland backstop.
Sputnik has discussed this with James Downes, a Professor in Comparative Politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
The next act in the Brexit play will be for Prime Minister Theresa May to go back to Brussels and seek to renegotiate her current Brexit deal. This will be no easy task and there are no guarantees that she will be able to renegotiate key issues such as the Backstop arrangement with Northern Ireland. If the Prime Minister does come back empty handed to Parliament, then it is conceivable that the opposition party, the Labour Party may seek to call a Vote of No Confidence in the Government and bring it down, with support of other opposition parties, such as the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats.
However, the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is also deeply divided on Brexit.
