British PM May seeks more time: promises Brexit deal vote by March 12

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British PM May seeks more time: promises Brexit deal vote by March 12

By Elizabeth Piper

 

FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits a community centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland February 5, 2019. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/Pool/File Photo

 

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May put off a vote in parliament on her Brexit deal until as late as March 12 - just 17 days before Britain is due to leave the EU - setting up a showdown this week with lawmakers who accuse her of running out the clock.

 

As the Brexit crisis goes down to the wire, May said a so-called "meaningful vote" would not take place this week as expected. Parliament will still hold a series of Brexit votes on Wednesday, but May's deal itself will not be on the table.

 

On her way to an EU-Middle East summit, May said she is close to bringing home changes to her agreement that would satisfy objections to it, but needed time for meetings with European leaders which meant it would not be ready this week.

 

"We won't bring a meaningful vote to parliament this week but we will ensure that that happens by the 12th of March," May told reporters on board her plane. "It is still within our grasp to leave the European Union with a deal on the 29th of March and that is what we are working to do."

 

Opponents accuse her of deliberately running out the clock, so as to force parliament to choose between a deal it has already rejected or leaving the EU with no deal at all, which businesses say would destroy their supply chains.

 

Both May's Conservatives and the main opposition Labour Party are formally committed to exiting the EU in line with a 2016 referendum vote, but both parties are internally divided over how or even whether to do so.

 

CABINET SPLIT

Before May set off for Egypt, three members of her cabinet publicly split with government policy and said they would side with rebels and opposition parties to stop a no-deal Brexit.

 

Yvette Cooper, an opposition Labour lawmaker who has proposed a bill that would block a no-deal Brexit, said May's "last minute announcement that she won’t put a deal to parliament this week, and is leaving it until just two weeks before Brexit day, is utterly shambolic and irresponsible."

 

"She cannot just keep drifting and dithering like this or there is a real risk our whole country tumbles off a cliff edge into a chaotic no deal that no one is ready for and that would hit food prices, medicine supplies, manufacturing and security."

 

Some lawmakers will seek to grab control of Brexit in Wednesday's series of votes, though such attempts have previously been defeated as May sought more time to get a deal.

 

Senior Labour figures said that the main opposition party was moving closer to supporting another Brexitreferendum and could do so as soon as early as this week.

 

Nine Labour lawmakers and three Conservatives quit their parties last week in the biggest shakeup of its kind in British politics for decades, raising the prospect of further defections from both parties.

 

The British parliament voted 432-202 against May's deal in January, a defeat by the biggest margin in modern British history. May says she can still win support for it if EU leaders ease rules intended to ensure no hard land border ever appears between British-ruled Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland.

 

European Council President Donald Tusk told May that the EU needs clarity that whatever the bloc might offer would command a majority in the British parliament, before a summit of EU leaders scheduled for March 21-22, an EU official said.

 

EU officials have considered many theoretical scenarios, including an extension of Brexit for up to two years, though it is unclear if such a delay would resolve the current impasse.

 

The EU has ruled out reopening the withdrawal agreement. Both sides are looking at a possible legal addendum to reassure lawmakers who worry that the Irish border plans could keep Britain trapped in the EU's orbit for years to come.

 

But Europeans sound increasingly frustrated at Britain's political chaos: "You need two to dance tango, and I know how to dance," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said when asked if he was running out of things to give on Brexit. "I have a certain Brexit fatigue."

 

(Additional reporting by Kylie MacLellan in London, Aidan Lewis and Amina Ismail in Sharm El-Sheikh and Francesco Guarascio in Brussels; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Peter Graff)

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-02-25

[welovesundaysatspace]

+ a 21-months extension is being discussed if a deal is unlikely to pass. That would the nail in the Brexit coffin. So I guess Brexiteers finally will have to decide: do we actually want Brexit, and not the castles-in-the-sky Brexit that Boris and the Gang have lied to us about, but the one that actually is realistic?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Grouse]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47348610

 

That bloody women is in contempt of parliament. She will be suitably punished

 

Do Malaysian Airlines have a flight to bring her back to London?

[mickymouse1]

Macron said " the English always cause problems wherever they go and want to get away with it. 

This time they will not get away with trying to Divide the EU"

What a bloody divided house!!

The entire gov should resign .

[puck2]

May is really, really great ..... in delaying and NOT solving problems, and a die-hard.

[vogie]

2 hours ago, mickymouse1 said:

Macron said " the English always cause problems wherever they go and want to get away with it. 

This time they will not get away with trying to Divide the EU"

What a bloody divided house!!

The entire gov should resign .

Macron has hardly united his country now has he, at least we don't have the gilets jaunes......yet!

[tomacht8]

Difficult process for all involved.

https://www.businessinsider.com/yougov-poll-brexit-regret-remain-second-referendum-2019-2

[tomacht8]

54 minutes ago, vogie said:

Macron has hardly united his country now has he, at least we don't have the gilets jaunes......yet!

What a pity.
But that would have been the right way to make your own government responsible for the problems in your own country.
In the meantime, the EU has become a scapegoat for everything in the UK by the gossip press and the propagandists.

[dunroaming]

How can that woman still be calling the shots?

[Mavideol]

8 minutes ago, dunroaming said:

How can that woman still be calling the shots?

they call it democracy I guess..... the queen of running down the clock

[Loiner]

Difficult to tell what she will do at the eleventh hour.
Hold the EU to a reasonable deal?
Hold the MPs to another bad deal?
Walk away to the Withdrawal Act and No Deal?



Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[tebee]

Of course the problem with this is that whether we have a deal or no deal, March 12th leaves no time to push through the domestic legislation needed to fill the gaps in our laws left by leaving on 29th March

 

So we either need an extension or she's going to call the whole thing off or we institute martial law or the UK descends into lawless chaos 

[Nigel Garvie]

5 hours ago, tomacht8 said:

Difficult process for all involved.

https://www.businessinsider.com/yougov-poll-brexit-regret-remain-second-referendum-2019-2

Many thanks for posting that excellent article. I have taken the liberty of extracting the critical graph. If I were a Leaver I would be feeling very uneasy now, and reaching desperately for any pathetic straws of comfort I could find.............oh they are doing it already...........on this very forum as well....good lord......I really should pay more attention.

The games is up, and I can't even see committed leavers like Corbyn and May, stemming the tide of people who no longer believe in the barefaced lies they were told, and want to safeguard the economic future of their family and country. Of course the referendum should be null and void anyway, the spending limits were breached for two days after the deadline.

 

[Nigel Garvie]

Oh and here is a little picture of what has happened to our car and aircraft industry. Now we need to try desperately to make up some reason why it has nothing to do with Brexit, while we mull over whether TMs delaying tactic is going to help anyone.

 

Well before you start please consider this.

1) No one is claiming that there were no other factors than Brexit, there were bound to be some.

2) Most of the Japanese are far too polite to dwell on Brexit as main reason, they may require government help in the future, businessmen generally avoid making enemies. 

3) What with "Care in the community" provisions in the UK, those who cannot see ANY link to Brexit will no longer have to be hospitalised.

 

The poster below didn't age very well really.

Edited February 25, 2019 by Nigel Garvie
ommission

[Baerboxer]

15 hours ago, Grouse said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47348610

 

That bloody women is in contempt of parliament. She will be suitably punished

 

Do Malaysian Airlines have a flight to bring her back to London?

 

Naughty old Grousey!

[Baerboxer]

5 hours ago, tebee said:

Of course the problem with this is that whether we have a deal or no deal, March 12th leaves no time to push through the domestic legislation needed to fill the gaps in our laws left by leaving on 29th March

 

So we either need an extension or she's going to call the whole thing off or we institute martial law or the UK descends into lawless chaos 

 

Your last 2 ideas are highly unlikely. What is likely is the game she's playing is now obvious to even the dumbest observer - run the clock down, force acceptance of her crap deal with the threat of no deal as the only alternative. 

 

Despicable hypocritical woman.

[Baerboxer]

12 hours ago, mickymouse1 said:

Macron said " the English always cause problems wherever they go and want to get away with it. 

This time they will not get away with trying to Divide the EU"

What a bloody divided house!!

The entire gov should resign .

 

Macron should talk. Napoleon wanted to dictate to Europe. Macron, who seems to think he's the new Napoleon hasn't exactly united the French!

He should check EU history and how the French simply ignore EU rules whenever it suits them!

[Baerboxer]

9 hours ago, tomacht8 said:

What a pity.
But that would have been the right way to make your own government responsible for the problems in your own country.
In the meantime, the EU has become a scapegoat for everything in the UK by the gossip press and the propagandists.

 

The EU is certainly used incorrectly by some as a universal scapegoat.

 

So you support open anarchy as a means of protest then?

[tomacht8]

11 minutes ago, Baerboxer said:

 

The EU is certainly used incorrectly by some as a universal scapegoat.

 

So you support open anarchy as a means of protest then?

right to demonstrate yes.

nonviolence yes.

it is far away from open Anarchy. Unfortunately, there are always in demonstration groups, a small militant  group that use violence because the street fight brings them fun and excitement.

Similar to the football hooligans. The majority enjoys the game and a minority the brawl. France also has its own culture of demonstration. They love burning barricades and destroying cars.

In Germany we have sometimes the same.

Come and visit Hamburg or Berlin at 1. Mai.

Or the last G20 meeting in Hamburg.

It's not pretty, but it always looks 10 times worse in the media. Anarchy would be if it were like that 365 days a year.

[tebee]