MPs won’t get a vote on not having a vote – and Downing Street says it won’t extend Article 50.
John Bercow is a man determined to show Labour MPs why they were right to keep him as Speaker rather than oust him over bullying allegations. With every Commons debate comes a profoundly unhelpful intervention from the chair, and so it was today: Bercow told MPs that it would be “deeply discourteous” if ministers postponed tomorrow’s meaningful vote without first securing their approval.
That, however, is precisely what the government has chosen to do. Addressing reporters after Theresa May’s statement this evening, the prime minister’s official spokesman confirmed that MPs will not get a vote on not having a vote.
The courteous alternative offered by Bercow – in an attempt to shame the government into compliance – would be for a minister to move a motion for the Commons to adjourn. Tory backbenchers and the DUP had made clear they would have voted against the government in such a scenario, denying it the right to defer.
The discourteous way of getting around this – which Downing Street has confirmed it will take – will see ministers simply appoint a “future day” for the remaining chunk of the meaningful vote debate, as well as the vote itself, when the order of business is read to the Commons by its clerks this evening.
