Month: March 2019

MPs have voted to extend Brexit beyond 29 March by backing a government motion forced on Theresa May by the Commons.

The motion, which May was forced to agree to if her own Brexit plan was defeated again, as it was on Tuesday, decrees that the government will seek agreement with the EU for an extension to article 50 beyond that date. It was passed by 412 votes to 202.

188 Tories votes against the Government’s motion, only 112 Tory MPs supported it. The former Brexit Secretary voted with the government, while the current Brexit Secretary voted against the government

The motion says that if a Brexit plan is agreed by 20 March then this would be a brief, technical extension until 30 June – if not, it says, it would probably involve a longer period, and the UK taking part in upcoming European elections.

In response to Thursday’s vote, the European commission stressed that the UK would not automatically be granted an extension, saying the EU would have to consider its own interests.

That’s how one political talking head described the situation.

MPs have inflicted two more defeats on Theresa May, rejecting the idea of Britain leaving the EU without a deal and clearing the way for Brexit to be delayed.After the prime minister’s deal was heavily voted down for a second time on Tuesday, she announced a government motion ruling out a no-deal Brexit on 29 March – overturning her longstanding policy of refusing to rule it out. May promised MPs a free vote, but the motion was carefully worded, with the final sentence stating that, “leaving without a deal remains the default in UK and EU law unless this house and the EU ratify an agreement”. However, MPs voted by 312 to 308 to support a backbench amendment which struck out that last phrase so as to rule out a no-deal exit altogether.

In chaotic scenes, the government then rescinded its promise of a free vote; and whipped its MPs to vote against the amended motion. Several Tory MPs, including cabinet ministers who have warned about the risks of a no-deal Brexit abstained or otherwise defied the whip, and the government lost the vote, by 321 votes to 278. The prime minister responded with a defiant statement, insisting a no-deal Brexit could only be avoided by agreeing a deal, or cancelling Brexit.

So repeat after me. The government tried to force its own MPs to vote against the government’s own motion, after it was amended to rule out any prospect of no-deal Brexit – and failed. The scuttlebutt from the moderate Tories is a choice between a bad Brexit deal or no Brexit at all – something that they really want to avoid. The Brextremists want to set everything ablaze and fiddle.

The vote does not definitively preclude a no-deal Brexit – MPs must still agree a deal, or extend or revoke article 50 in order to do that – but it underlined both the strength of feeling at Westminster and the government’s loss of control. In the aftermath of the vote, Brussels warned that the Commons vote blocking a no-deal Brexit was meaningless. A senior EU negotiator described it as “the Titanic voting for the iceberg to get out of the way”.

Quoted text: The Guardian

So the latest vote on the Brexit withdrawal agreement happened last night.

It wasn’t expected to to well, and it didn’t go against expectations.

Tonight, there is a vote on whether or not to take no-deal off the table. If it stays on the table, the UK will go full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes. Or they might try and wish their way out of the EU. Either way, bad things happen when you reject reality and substitute your own.

If no deal is taken off the table, as I’m hoping saner minds (or motivated self-interest) will prevail, then the UK needs to ask the EU for an extension. That’s still not a given, because I think that the EU is getting (rightfully) fed up with this whole shitshow.

If we do get the extension…. then what? There’s still no workable deal. Labour just wants a general election, in the assumption that it can do nothing much better than the Tories just did (but hey, at least they’ll be in power!). The ERG and Boris are foaming at the mouth at the prospect of making money while everything burns around them (but at least we have blue passports – made in France!).

My preferred option is another referendum, where people who realize that they were lied to, promised impossible things and were given the wrong targets to hate and fear, vote to rescind this idiocy. There are also millions of new young voters who are eligible to vote since the madness began – and a significant majority of those are against Brexit. If the worst comes to pass and the voting public still decides to press on with it, then fine, let the UK go to hell in its corner, because it frankly doesn’t deserve anything better.