London – Britain’s Parliament has delivered a crushing verdict on Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit divorce deal, rejecting it by 432 votes to 202 –…
London – Britain’s Parliament has delivered a crushing verdict on Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit divorce deal, rejecting it by 432 votes to 202 – the biggest defeat suffered by a government in modern British political history.
That leaves the country’s EU exit process in crisis, with just 10 weeks until it is due to leave the bloc on March 29.
On Wednesday, May’s government faces a no-confidence vote in Parliament. If it survives, May has until the start of next week to come back to Parliament with a Plan B.
Here’s a look at what might happen next.
Try and try again
After Tuesday’s defeat, May assured the House of Commons that “the House has spoken and the government will listen.” She plans to hold talks with lawmakers from across the political spectrum before announcing a new plan.
But May’s office has downplayed the prospect of major changes to the deal that has been negotiated, and EU leaders are adamant that the 585-page withdrawal agreement cannot be reopened.
That means May could return to Parliament next week with a tweaked deal that is only slightly different to the previous one. But that is unlikely to win over many opponents of the agreement.
Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said most leaders who had suffered a defeat on this scale would be “either resigning or looking to trash the deal that they’d got and do something utterly different.
