British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday postponed a parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal to seek more concessions but the European Union refused to renegotiate and lawmakers doubted her chances of winning big changes.<\/b>
\nLONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday postponed a parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal to seek more concessions but the European Union refused to renegotiate and lawmakers doubted her chances of winning big changes.
May\u2019s abrupt move less than 30 hours before parliament was to vote opens up a range of possibilities from a Brexit without a deal, a last-minute agreement or another EU referendum.
Admitting she faced defeat on Britain\u2019s potentially biggest political and economic shift since World War Two, May was laughed at by some lawmakers when she said there was broad support for key aspects of her deal reached with the EU last month.
However, \u201cIf we went ahead and held the vote tomorrow, the deal would be rejected by a significant margin,\u201d she told parliament of the agreement she clinched after 18 months of tortuous negotiations.
With her position in jeopardy, May said she would now go back to the EU and seek reassurances over the so-called Irish \u201cbackstop\u201d, an insurance policy to ensure no return to a hard border on the island of Ireland.
She questioned whether parliament was trying to frustrate the democratic will of Britons to leave the EU and warned that without agreement the world\u2019s fifth largest economy would leave on March 29 without a deal.
The EU reacted coolly, with European Council President Donald Tusk saying it was ready to discuss how to smooth ratification, but that neither the withdrawal agreement nor the Irish backstop would be renegotiated.
\u201cAs time is running out, we will also discuss our preparedness for a no-deal scenario,\u201d Tusk said. Brexit will be discussed at a previously scheduled EU summit on Dec. 13-14.
Sterling GBP=D3 skidded to its weakest level since April 2017, falling to $1.2507. It was trading at $1.50 on the day of the 2016 Brexit referendum. Yields on U. S. 10-year bonds dropped to the lowest since late August. [nL8N1YF1JY] MAY\u2019S STRATEGY?
The vote postponement marks what many lawmakers cast as the collapse of May\u2019s two-year attempt to forge compromise under which the United Kingdom would exit the EU while staying closely within its orbit.
The EU\u2019s 27 other members, with a combined economic might six times that of the United Kingdom, appeared unlikely to countenance substantive changes which could convince her domestic opponents.
A costly British exit without a negotiated accord looks increasingly likely, French European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau said following May\u2019s decision.
\u201cThe risk of a no-deal exit would also be an exit that would be undoubtedly extremely costly for the United Kingdom but which would be damaging for the EU too,\u201d he told French lawmakers.
Germany\u2019s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said there were no possibilities to amend Britain\u2019s 585-page withdrawal deal.
May indicated she was seeking further assurances from the EU on the working of the backstop and would seek to give the British parliament more power over its application to satisfy sovereignty demands.
May said other EU leaders were open to discussion about the backstop, but few in parliament were convinced.
Any assurances May secures from the EU over the contentious backstop will be \u201ccompletely irrelevant\u201d if they are not included in the withdrawal agreement, lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg, a leading Brexit supporter, told reporters.
\u201cIt would be transformative if the backstop were removed,\u201d Rees-Mogg said. \u201cBut, this is the whole backstop, this isn\u2019t some paragraph saying it will finish in 2025 or something. It has to be out.\u201d \u201cMAKE WAY\u201d, SAYS LABOUR
The Northern Irish party which props up May\u2019s minority government bluntly told her to ditch the backstop altogether or face the collapse of her deal. The Democratic Unionist Party is upset as the backstop could align Northern Ireland more closely with the EU than the rest of the United Kingdom.
The leader of Britain\u2019s opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said Britain no longer had a functioning government and called on May to \u201cmake way\u201d for Labour.
Just a handful of MPs publicly supported her deal on Monday.
May said the deeper question was whether parliament wanted to deliver on the people\u2019s will from the 2016 referendum, or open up divisions with another national vote.
\u201cIf you take a step back, it is clear that this house faces a much more fundamental question: does this house want to deliver Brexit?\u201d May asked.
Her decision to halt the vote came just hours after the EU\u2019s top court, the Court of Justice, said in an emergency judgment that London could revoke its Article 50 formal divorce notice with no penalty. [nL8N1YF1JY]
Both May\u2019s ruling Conservatives and the main opposition Labour Party are publicly committed to carrying out Brexit. But a no-deal Brexit is seen as so disruptive that parliament would be under strong pressure to block it.
The ultimate outcome will shape Britain\u2019s $2.8 trillion economy, have far-reaching consequences for the unity of the United Kingdom and determine whether London can keep its place as one of the top two global financial centres.
\u201cThe only way not to have no deal is to have a deal and to agree a deal,\u201d May said.<\/p>\n