Theresa May offers MPs chance to delay Brexit: Live updates

We’ll be back here tomorrow, when the government will hold a debate on an amendable motion to Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

The motion will seek to reaffirm support for the government in seeking changes to the Northern Ireland backstop and to recognize that negotiations are ongoing.

Theresa May’s move to open the way for a delay to Brexit could help her government avoid an embarrassing defeat on Wednesday when lawmakers reconvene to debate an amendable motion to her deal.

In doing so, she’s managed to head off the opposition Labour Party, which announced earlier this week that it would support an amendment in Parliament ruling out a no-deal Brexit and supporting an extension to Article 50.

Labour declared yesterday that it would also back a second EU referendum, should its alternative to May’s Brexit plan be rejected by Parliament on Wednesday.

These sudden policy shifts fall against the backdrop of major internal divisions in both the main parties. In some sense, they could be seen as little more than political maneuvering, aimed at shifting the Brexit narrative back onto more comfortable ground for either party. That, and a little bit of party management.

So, is it a sea change or a cynical political move?

Read Luke McGee’s full analysis here.

Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg is one of the leading proponents of Brexit.

Speaking on Sky News, Jacob Rees-Mogg, a leading Brexiteer and the chairman of the European Research Group, said Theresa May’s proposal to give lawmakers a vote to extend Article 50 would only delay the inevitable.

And it won’t make him more willing to back her deal either.

“The cliff edge, if that’s the term people want to use, has merely been moved back,” Rees-Mogg said, adding that there was no evidence a new deal could be agreed after a short extension.

He urged lawmakers who want a delayed Brexit to think about what they want it for – to stymie leaving the EU altogether, or to help the Prime Minister get a deal.

“This brinksmanship, this sort of effort of ‘call my bluff,’ is not going to change people’s minds to back her deal,” he said, indicating that the threat of a delayed Brexit was not enough to persuade Brexiteers to vote for May’s plan.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman has refused to say whether the government would support an extension to the Article 50 divorce process if Theresa May’s deal is defeated.

Because the government’s focus is on bringing back a deal for the next meaningful vote, May’s spokesman shut down questions on what might come next – including how the government would whip MPs. Downing Street said that “questions of how lawmakers are told to vote are for another day.”

May also batted away questions from lawmakers about which way she would vote on Article 50 should her deal fail, saying only that she would not want to see it extended.

Besides Theresa May’s plan to put a delayed Brexit up for a vote, here are the other key takeaways from her statement:

UK and EU working on “alternative arrangements” to backstop in Ireland

Matching EU laws on workers’ rights to be put up for vote

UK would ultimately make a “success” of a no-deal Brexit

Urges EU states to guarantee rights of Brits living abroad

Rules out second referendum proposed by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn

Time and again, Theresa May’s response to questions lobbed by lawmakers over the future of the country was this: “there are only three options.”

Opposition Labour MP for Birmingham Jess Philips made an impassioned plea for May to “do a brave thing and do what is best for the country,” calling on her to vote against a no-deal.

May replied that the implication was to deny the facts of the situation, adding that the only options left for the UK were to leave the EU with a deal, to leave without a deal, or to revoke Article 50.

Nigel Dodds, the Deputy Leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), says the Prime Minister needs no reminding that her Brexit deal was defeated in a previous vote because of the backstop.

Addressing the House of Commons after May’s speech, Dodds insisted that without “legally watertight changes to the backstop,” the DUP would still not support the withdrawal deal.

Anna Soubry, one of three lawmakers who quit May’s Conservative Party last week, said that the Prime Minister had once again deferred any decision-making in order to keep her party together.

“This is a shameful moment, nothing has changed apart from the fact that some of us who used to sit over there now sit over here,” Soubry said, adding that May’s statement was another “kicking of the can” down the road instead of putting the country first.

Soubry and fellow MPs Heidi Allen and Sarah Wollaston split from the Conservatives to join former Labour lawmakers in a breakaway bloc known as the Independent Group.

This is what Theresa May said in her statement to the House of Commons about allowing MPs to vote on extending Article 50.

An anti-Brexit campaigner outside the Houses of Parliament in London.

In a few short words, Theresa May lobbed a grenade into the Brexit debate. Her promise to put the options of no deal and delaying Brexit to the House of Commons sets the stage for the biggest showdown in the UK’s politics in years.  

In simple terms, May, who has for months been trying to find a way to get her hard-fought deal with the EU ratified by the UK Parliament, has called out lawmakers on all sides of the political divide. 

First, the Brexiteers who have for so long hidden behind their principles will have to decide once and for all if they are prepared to risk seeing Brexit delayed as the price of rejecting May’s deal.

The same goes for Europhiles, who will have to make the choice between backing May’s deal or sitting tight as Parliament has a chance to vote in favour of a no-deal Brexit.

Finally, everyone across the Commons, with the exception of those happy to see the UK crash out of the EU with no deal, will have to weigh up the risk of applying for an extension to Article 50 against the new cliff edge that such an extension would create. 

Make no mistake: this is a huge moment in the Brexit process. 

Theresa May dismissed proposals for a second referendum on Brexit, after the British opposition Labour Party said it would back one if Parliament did not agree a withdrawal deal. 

May said Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn wants to hold a “division referendum that would take our country right back to square one.”

UK Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn has accused Theresa May of “stringing people along” over Brexit, saying the Prime Minister had become an expert in “kicking the can down the road.”

Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, told the House of Commons that crashing out of the European Union without a deal would be “disastrous” for the UK.

Opposition Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn addresses the House of Commons.

Theresa May told the House of Commons that – despite offering MPs the chance to postpone Brexit – she does not want to see such a delay.

“Let me be clear: I do not want to see Article 50 extended,” May said. “Our absolute focus should be on working to get a deal and leaving on the 29th of March.”

May added that the House of Commons voted to trigger Article 50 and that it is obligated to follow through to honor the will of the British people, saying “the very credibility of our democracy is at stake.”

The UK PM flagged up one of the factors which would complicate any plan to push Brexit back by several months: elections to the European Parliament are due to be held in the summer.

“An extension beyond the end of June would mean the UK taking part in the European Parliament elections,” May pointed out. “What kind of message would that send to the more than 17 million people who voted to leave the EU nearly three years ago now?”

In addition to announcing a vote that could extend Article 50, May loosely outlined her ongoing “focused discussions” with EU leaders to rework the withdrawal agreement.

As part of those discussions, May said the UK and EU have discussed the legal changes that are required to guarantee that the Northern Ireland backstop – an insurance policy designed to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland, which remains part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member – cannot endure indefinitely.

British lawmakers voted last month to send May back to Brussels to renegotiate the terms of the Brexit deal, specifically over concerns regarding the Irish backstop. But on Tuesday May did not offer many details as to what those alternative arrangements might be.

“Our aim is to ensure that, even if the full future relationship is not in place by the end of the implementation period, the backstop is not needed because we have a set of alternative arrangements ready to go,” May said.

Theresa May has said she wants to make three further commitments to lawmakers.

“I know MPs are genuinely worried we are running out of time,” May said, ruling out the possibility of a no-deal without Parliament’s consent. 

Here’s what that means:

March 12: A second “meaningful vote” will be held on May’s revised Brexit deal.

March 13: If the government doesn’t win the March 12 vote, it will table a neutral amendable motion asking the House of Commons if it supports leaving the EU with no deal, to be voted on by March 13 at the latest.

March 14: If MPs reject leaving the EU without a deal, the government will allow them to vote on a “short, limited extension” to Article 50 – the process whereby an EU member state can leave the union. If that passes, the government will then seek that extension.

Theresa May has offered lawmakers the chance to vote on delaying Brexit if her deal is voted down in March.

Under May’s plan, MPs would be offered a “meaningful vote” on a revised exit deal by March 12.

If MPs reject the negotiated deal, they will be given another vote on March 14 to decide whether to opt for a “short, limited extension” to the Article 50 divorce process.

The move comes after months of May insisting that the United Kingdom would leave the European Union on March 29 with or without a deal if none could be agreed.

The prospect of a delayed Brexit looms over British Prime Minister Theresa May as she prepares to address lawmakers in the House of Commons today.

The opposition Labour Party appears ready for a showdown, announcing its support for an amendment that aims to rule out a no-deal scenario by extending Article 50 – the legal process whereby a European Union member state can leave – and appearing to back a second referendum vote.

But the Prime Minister contends it’s “still within our grasp” to leave the EU on time and with a deal by the March 29 deadline.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, European leaders argue that an extension is a rational solution compared to leaving without a deal.