UK government to hold Brexit vote

International Desk: MPs will be asked to vote again on Brexit on Friday but only on part of the deal negotiated with the EU.

They will vote on the withdrawal agreement on the Irish "backstop", divorce bill and citizens' rights.

But it will not amount to a third "meaningful vote" on the deal, as it will not include a vote on the UK's future relationship with the EU.

Amid anger from MPs, Andrea Leadsom said it was "crucial" if the UK wanted to secure a Brexit delay until 22 May.

MPs will be debating the motion on the day the UK was supposed to leave the European Union - 29 March.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said Theresa May was essentially asking MPs to turn it into a game of two halves - just voting on the first part of the deal which sorts out the UK's departure and leaving the longer term part for the next few weeks.

But it is still not certain it will get through - both Labour and the Democratic Unionist Party say they will vote against the withdrawal agreement on Friday.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the withdrawal agreement could not be separated from the political declaration "because otherwise you move into a blindfold Brexit".

The DUP's deputy leader Nigel Dodds said he was not expecting "any last minute rabbits out of the hat" that would change the party's position.

The vote, on what was meant to be Brexit Day, is a request to MPs to allow her to keep going, to carry on pursuing her route, with its well-documented flaws.

There's a challenge there too, not just to her own Brexiteers but to Labour and the other opposition parties, to say "no" to a long delay to our departure from the EU, the last moment when Number 10 believes anything even approaching a timely exit can be guaranteed.

There are signs now of course that many Eurosceptic MPs are ready to say yes - not because they suddenly have realised her deal is perfect but because more of them officially realise that it is the clearest break from the EU they can realistically hope for.

Yet her Northern Irish allies are not persuaded. Labour, even though they have sometimes accepted that what's on the table tomorrow, the divorce deal, will never be unpicked by the EU, will still, in the main, resist.

He told the BBC that the DUP was concerned about plans for "a trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK and what that would mean in terms of who makes our laws - not Stormont or Westminster".

The PM's deal includes a withdrawal agreement - setting out how much money the UK must pay to the EU as a settlement, details of the transition period, and the backstop arrangements - and a political declaration on the way the future EU-UK relationship will work.

Last week the European Council agreed to postpone Brexit beyond the expected date of 29 March - offering an extension until 22 May, if MPs approved the withdrawal agreement by the end of this week.

If not, it offered a shorter delay until 12 April - the date by which the UK would have to indicate whether it would stand candidates in the 2019 European Parliament elections - allowing the UK time to get the deal through or to "indicate a way forward".

BBC Brussels reporter Adam Fleming said the official conclusions from last week's summit only mention the need to pass the withdrawal agreement by Friday, not the political declaration.

Source: BBC


risingbd/March 29, 2019/Mukul