Facing a humiliating defeat on her Brexit deal, the Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Monday to the House of Commons that she would defer a vote, which had been scheduled for Tuesday.
The pound fell 1.4 per cent against the dollar on Monday, while the euro was up 1.2 per cent. The FTSE 100, the main London index, closed down 0.8 per cent.
The withdrawal treaty, which Mrs May has spent the past year and a half crafting, outlines the terms of a transition after the UK leaves the bloc in March 2019, and provides a backstop plan for Northern Ireland. The political declaration – a non-binding, joint statement of intent on future UK-EU relations – accompanies the withdrawal treaty. The 26-page document provides a basis for post-Brexit trade negotiations. The transition period would mean further payments to the EU and the continuation of freedom of movement.
The backstop arrangement in the withdrawal agreement has been designed to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland after Brexit. The backstop would keep the UK in a customs union with the bloc unless an alternative solution is found to prevent physical checks or infrastructure at the border that separates Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Brexiters fear that the Irish backstop could lock the UK into close ties with the EU in perpetuity.
Mrs May’s government was forced to publish confidential legal advice from the attorney-general that set out in blunt terms how Britain could enter an open-ended customs union with the EU as part of the Irish backstop until an alternative solution was put in place to avoid a hard border. The full legal advice was published a day after MPs voted on December 4 to hold the government in contempt of parliament for ignoring their request for release of the document. This is the first time in British history a government has been found in contempt. The Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which is propping up Mrs May’s government, sided with other opposition parties to force the publication of the government’s full Brexit deal legal advice.
About 100 Tory MPs and the DUP are against the exit treaty Mrs May has negotiated with the EU, as well as all the opposition parties. One of the amendments passed on December 4 gives the British parliament more control in the event that Mrs May’s withdrawal agreement is rejected.
Mrs May is now seeking additional reassurances on the backstop from the EU (that it would be temporary). However, Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, said there was no room for renegotiation of the 585-page Brexit treaty. Donald Tusk, European Council president, also warned that there could be no renegotiation of the Brexit deal. Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, said the substance of the treaty could not be changed.
The European Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court, ruled on Monday that that the UK had the right unilaterally to revoke its notification to leave the EU for as long as the two-year period from the date of activating the official mechanism for leaving the bloc (known as Article 50), and any possible extension, has not expired. Revoking Article 50 will leave the UK’s status in the EU unchanged.
Jeremy Corbyn, Eurosceptic Labour leader, is resisting pressure from his own MPs and other opposition parties – the Scottish National party, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Greens – to trigger a vote of no confidence in Mrs May.
Photo: Number 10
