EU leaders step up plans for no-deal Brexit as May pulls key vote
By Frank Prenesti
Date: Tuesday 11 Dec 2018
(Sharecast News) - European Union leaders stepped up preparations for a no-deal Brexit as UK Prime Minister Theresa May was humiliated into pulling a key vote on the withdrawal proposal or face a catastrophic parliamentary defeat that could sink her premiership.
In another day of turmoil at Westminster where the ceremonial mace was grabbed by a Labour MP in protest, May was lambasted for postponing Tuesday's vote after Downing Street and ministers insisted on Monday morning that it would proceed.
The decision to pull the vote sent the pound tumbling to its lowest level since April 2017 as investors fretted on the prospect of Britain crashing out of the EU without a free trade agreement.
Having ignored for almost a month former US President Lyndon B Johnson's first rule of politics - that you must be able to count - May told an incredulous House of Commons she had listened to concerns over the Northern Ireland backstop and conceded she would lose the vote by a "significant margin".
The vote was postponed informally, avoiding the required vote to end parliament's scheduled business which May might well have lost.
Commons speaker John Bercow called the move "deeply discourteous" and later in the evening granted a motion for an emergency debate on Tuesday morning tabled by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
EU STANDS FIRM ON DEAL
May said she would visit other EU leaders as well as the heads of the European council and the commission before a European summit this week in an effort to relay MPs' concerns over the Irish border backstop - the insurance policy to avoid a hard border with Northern Ireland if a comprehensive free trade deal cannot be signed before the end of 2020.
However, the EU held firm on its line that the deal on the table was the only acceptable proposal. Irish Taoseach Leo Varadkar spoke with European Council president Donald Tusk and agreed that the withdrawal deal was "the best option and could not be renegotiated", adding that preparations for a no deal outcome would now "intensify".
"We have already offered a lot of concessions along the way," Varadkar said. "We ended up with the backstop with this withdrawal agreement because of all the red lines the UK laid down along the way. This is a withdrawal agreement which has the support of 28 member states. It's not possible to open up any one aspect of this without opening up all aspects of the agreement."
"I have no difficulty with statements that clarify what's in the withdrawal agreement...but no statement of clarification can contradict what's in it."
Tusk was adamant the EU would "not renegotiate the deal, including the backstop, but we are ready to discuss how to facilitate UK ratification".
"As time is running out, we will also discuss our preparedness for a no-deal scenario."
There is no formal deadline for to hold a UK parliamentary vote before the UK leaves the European Union on March 29 but the government needs to leave enough time to ratify the legislation to enact the withdrawal agreement.
TEMPERS FRAY IN PARLIAMENT
In a dramatic moment at the close of Tuesday's commons debate, and as the government formally deferred the deal vote, the Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle marched forward to grab the ceremonial mace in protest and held it aloft before walking towards the exit with it.
The mace represents the Queen's authority in parliament - without it MPs cannot meet or pass legislation. Russell-Moyle decided against running the gauntlet of sword-wielding commons officials in tights and handed the object back. He was then suspended for the rest of the sitting.
"Thankfully they haven't locked me in the Tower of London but if they had I'd expect May to be in the cell next to me for her treatment of parliament today," Russell-Moyle said.
Elsewhere, the European Court of Justice on Monday ruled that the British government could unilaterally reverse its decision to leave the EU without the consent of other bloc members.
According to the court, a member state had the right to revoke notification of its intention to withdraw from the EU "as long as a withdrawal agreement has not entered into force or, if no such agreement has been concluded, for as long as the two-year period, and any possible extension, has not expired".
The decision will boost the hopes of campaigners for a second referendum on the withdrawal agreement, which Prime Minister Theresa May has categorically ruled out, despite widespread criticism from all sides.
However, while May conceded the basis of the ruling, she said it would not be implemented as "revoking article 50 would mean going back on the vote of the referendum and remaining in the EU".
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