Update: May is returning to London where she will face a no-confidence vote on Wednesday in the House of Commons. The results are expected to be released at around 4 p.m. U.S. Eastern time.
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May insisted that her much-maligned Brexit withdrawal agreement would head to a vote in the British parliament, the House of Commons, tonight. She even dispatched cabinet members to go on television and declare the vote would go forward even though most lawmakers across the ideological spectrum were poised to reject it.
Instead, she announced yesterday that she was postponing the doomed vote to go back to European Union headquarters in Brussels to seek more concessions. She is scheduled to conduct talks for the rest of the week.
The EU has already announced, however, that there will be no further compromise or deal reopeners. In practice, that remains to be seen. There could be some smoke-and-mirrors language issued that is meant to hoodwink the House of Commons when the vote goes back on the agenda sometime in January.
In the June 23, 2016, referendum, the British public voted to leave or exit the EU and reclaim the country’s sovereignty and freedom, including control over its borders. According to polling, the electorate still overwhelmingly favors Brexit.
As you might expect, virtually the entire, London-centric political and media establishment coalesced around the anti-Brexit or “Remain” viewpoint.
A devoted globalist, May supported the Remain side in the referendum, but upon taking office as prime minister, promised that Brexit means Brexit and she would honor the will of the people. She also said that no deal is better than a bad deal.
The PM and her team then inexplicably negotiated a very bad divorce deal that keeps the U.K. under the thumb of the EU bureaucracy, however, a development that she stubbornly or dishonestly refuses to admit.
She is also likely to return from the EU this week empty handed. Upon arrival, May even encountered difficulties getting out of the car.
From the New York Post:
“Pro-Brexit politicians believe May’s deal doesn’t go far enough to sever ties with the 28-nation trade bloc, while pro-EU pols say it creates too many regulatory hurdles with the UK’s main trading partner.
“Central to the debate is the so-called Irish Backstop, a portion of May’s plan that seeks to keep Customs borders open between the EU-remaining Republic of Ireland and UK-controlled Northern Ireland until new trade arrangements can be forged.
“Critics are skeptical a superseding deal would ever materialize and fear the open-border provision would keep the EU and Britain indefinitely bound.
“May insisted that the agreement was ‘the best deal that is negotiable.’”
As required by British tradition, May fielded questions about the deal yesterday in parliament and obviously failed to convince either the Leave or Remain cohorts that the deal deserved the chamber’s approval. Calls are increasing for May to step down and let a true Brexiteer take over the premiership.
A leadership challenge is also a possibility as is an early election that could see the “Conservative” Party lose its majority (which is only a majority thanks to a coalition with the pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party) and usher in a far-left Labor government.
Some leftists are demanding a second referendum, which May has so far — to her credit — resisted.
Imagine if U.S. President Trump was required to answer questions in Congress (his debate today just with Pelosi and Schumer at the White House was intense) . The Democrats have yet to officially take over the U.S. House, and they’re already behaving like rabid dogs.
Brexit champion and former U.K. Independent Party leader Nigel Farage has deemed May’s plan “the worst deal in history.”
Instead of what “Project Fear” argues, Farage and other like-minded politicians maintain that a no-deal Brexit would allow the U.K. to negotiate free-trade agreements with individual countries under World Trade Organization rules.
UC Berkeley Professor Bruce Newsome, writing in Comment Central, is one of many who have described it as a betrayal of democracy.
“Back in 2016, everybody was quite clear that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market, customs union, European Court of Justice, and every extenuation and entanglement. The then prime minister (David Cameron) made clear that a vote for leave was a vote to leave the EU entirely (on the day after the vote, he added)…
“May too campaigned to Remain, until, after succeeding Cameron, she promised to leave the single market, customs union, EU jurisdiction, and everything else, and to replace them with a free trade agreement and similar bilateral agreements in our national interest…
“However, by 2018 May was planning to stay in the customs union, the defense and security unions, and the EU’s environmental and labor regimes, with all associated fees and jurisdiction.
“May sells her plan as a compromise, but a fake Brexit that looks more like Remain is a capitulation and a betrayal, not a compromise.
While the formal exit date is March 29, 2019, Newsome points out that the follow-on transition period could be an indefinite “purgatory” and subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice rather than an independent panel.
Former cabinet member Steve Baker summarized his objections to May’s Brexit deal in this tweet.
