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Theresa May stares at Brexit defeat, pleads for support ‘for country’s sake’

Hindustan Times, London | By
Jan 15, 2019 09:27 AM IST

Exhortations and appeals of support by British Prime Minister Theresa May and clarifications by EU failed to change minds of her allies and critics.

Exhortations and appeals of support by British Prime Minister Theresa May and clarifications by EU failed to change minds of her allies and critics, making it unlikely that the controversial withdrawal agreement will be passed in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

Senior cabinet minister and leading Brexiteer Liam Fox admitted that the agreement is unlikely to be passed when it is put to vote later in the evening.

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As currency markets and others monitored developments closely, there was another ministerial resignation over the Brexit deal. Gareth Johnson, the minister in the Whips Office, stepped down taking the total number of ministers resigning to 13 since the agreement was published in November.

“Over the last few weeks, I have tried to reconcile my duties as a Whip to assist the government to implement the European withdrawal agreement with my own personal objections to the agreement,” Johnson wrote in his resignation letter as May continued last-ditch efforts to persuade critics to vote for the agreement.

“I have concluded that I cannot, in all conscience, support the government’s position when it is clear this deal would be detrimental to our nation’s interests,” Johnson said.

A five-page letter by European Union leaders Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, which May hoped would assuage concerns of MPs on the key issue of ‘backstop’ for Northern Ireland, was rejected by her allies and critics alike for containing little more than warm words and good intention.

May was told categorically in the letter that “we (the EU) are not in a position to agree to anything that changes or is inconsistent with the withdrawal agreement,” riling the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which is propping up the minority May government.

“Despite a letter of supposed reassurance from the EU, there are no ‘legally-binding assurances’ as the prime minister talked about in December. In fact, there is nothing new. Nothing has changed,” Nigel Dodds, DUP leader in Westminster, said.

“Instead of meaningless letters, the prime minister should now ask for and deliver changes to the withdrawal agreement,” Dodds said.

Added Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer: “The prime minister has once again failed to deliver. This is a long way from the significant and legally effective commitment the prime minister promised. It is a reiteration of the EU’s existing position. Once again, nothing has changed”.

Westminster was busy discussing various scenarios in the event of the government losing the vote. According to May, the country will move into “uncharted territory” if the agreement is not endorsed by a majority in the House of Commons.

Possible scenarios include a ‘no-deal Brexit’ on March 29, renegotiating the current agreement with Brussels, another mid-term election, another referendum and a vote of no-confidence moved by the opposition Labour.

Labour insisted that there are several precedents in British political history from 1807 to 1974 of holding elections when the country faced “parliamentary stagnation and national crisis”.

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry wrote: “That is how our country works when we have a government that cannot govern; that is the way it has always worked going back to the Duke of Portland in 1807, and that is the situation Theresa May will find herself in after she loses the vote on her Brexit deal”.

Recalling May’s words that the UK will go into ‘uncharted territory’ if the agreement is voted down, Thornberry added that May is under a constitutional obligation of following the only course of action of holding elections when parliamentary authority fell away.

“But if she refuses, if Labour’s no-confidence motion fails, and if we have to move to other options, including campaigning for a public vote, we will take no lectures from her about respecting our country’s democracy,” Thornberry said.

“Because she will be the one who has forced us into that position by ignoring every historical precedent on which that democracy is based.”

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