UK now enters into a crucial week with important Brexit votes. Prime Minister Theresa May failed to secure the needed changes to Irish backstop. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier threw out a package of “concessions” that was rejected bluntly by the UK government. Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt insisted that the meaningful vote on the Brexit deal will still go ahead on Tuesday, March 12. But the Sunday Times predicted that May will lose by 230 votes again, the same margin of defeat as in January for effective the same deal in the Commons.
Hunt now turned to Brexiteer Tories and threatened that vote down the deal would open the door to no Brexit. He said, “If you want to stop Brexit you only need to do three things: kill this deal, get an extension, and then have a second referendum. Within three weeks those people could have two of those three things … and quite possibly the third one could be on the way.”
On the other hand, the EU is trying to push the UK to make up it’s mind clearly, rather that getting an extension with no purpose. France’s EU affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau said “More time, to do what? We’ve had two years … If there’s nothing new, more time will not do anything other than usher in more uncertainty, and uncertainty just creates anxiety… It’s not time that we need, but a decision.”
Manfred Weber, the chairman of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament also said “May should end her zigzag course.” Also, “British politicians, and I mean Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in particular, must finally put their own careers and party considerations behind them and look at the country’s interests again.”
In short, there will be another parliamentary vote on the Brexit deal on March 12, next Tuesday. As it’s defeated, a vote on no-deal Brexit will then be held on March 13 to see if there is explicit consent on this path. If not, there will be another vote on Article 50 extension on March 14.
