Prime Minister Theresa May suffered a humiliating defeat over her plan to withdraw Britain from the European Union. Her latest failure thrusts the country further into political chaos with only 10 weeks to go until it is scheduled to leave the bloc. On June 23rd, 2016, Britain narrowly voted to leave the European Union, stunning Europe and the world in general. The EU employs a set of policies for its 28-member…
Prime Minister Theresa May suffered a humiliating defeat over her plan to withdraw Britain from the European Union. Her latest failure thrusts the country further into political chaos with only 10 weeks to go until it is scheduled to leave the bloc.
Background
On June 23rd, 2016, Britain narrowly voted to leave the European Union, stunning Europe and the world in general. The EU employs a set of policies for its 28-member states that aim to ensure the free movement of people, goods and trade among other services. Britain is deeply intertwined with the workings of the EU, especially with regard to trade.
PM Theresa May’s leadership in the negotiations has been heavily criticised. She has been unable to form a consensus within the Parliament, or even her own party, for the course of Brexit. Her “directionless” leadership has not convinced most of her peers in Westminster and she was challenged by a no-confidence motion in early December 2018, which she narrowly won.
Despite her best efforts, the British parliament is not accepting the proposed Brexit agreement. Irrespective of whether they arrive on a deal or not, the UK is officially set to leave in March 2019.
Analysis
Negotiating the withdrawal from the European Union — which 52 per cent of British voters, or 17.4 million people, supported in a referendum in 2016 — has been Mrs. May’s single focus since she became prime minister.
The 432-to-202 vote to reject her proposal was the biggest defeat in the House of Commons for a prime minister in recent British history. And it underscores how comprehensively Mrs. May has failed to build consensus behind any single vision of how to exit the European Union. Now factions in Parliament will offer their own proposals — setting off a new, unpredictable stage in Brexit, the process of withdrawing from the bloc.
“She has completely lost control of the process, and her version of Brexit must now be dead, if she loses by 230 votes,” said John Springford, deputy director of the Center for European Reform, a London-based research institute.
Her failure to convey any convincing vision of Britain’s future outside the European Union has allowed painful divisions in the country to deepen.
The results of the vote have created a risk that Britain will exit the 28-nation European bloc with no deal, which analysts have warned could tip Britain into recession and trigger shortages of food, medicine and electricity because of constraints on trade.
Mrs. May’s plan would ultimately have given Britain’s government power over immigration from Europe and would have kept Britain in the European Union’s customs and trade system until at least the end of 2020 while a long-term pact is negotiated.
Immediately after the vote against her proposal, the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, citing the “sheer incompetence of this government,” called for a vote of no confidence in Mrs. May, which will be debated on January 16.
European Union officials, who have been waiting for Britain to resolve its plan, were muted in an official statement, though exasperated on Twitter. “If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?” Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, wrote in a Twitter post.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, said on Twitter: “I urge the U.K. to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Time is almost up.”
Before the vote, Mrs. May and her supporters were urging lawmakers in both the Conservative and Labour Parties to resolve the stalemate and back her plan, saying that a vote in favour would put country before party. In her final appeal in Parliament, the Conservative politician, impressed on lawmakers the importance of the vote facing them.
Assessment
Our assessment is that the possibility of Brexit not happening altogether is getting stronger with every failure of the Theresa May government. We believe that the Conservative Government will marginally win the no-confidence motion on the 16th of January, but we also feel that they may request an extension from the EU on the exit date.
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