POLITICO

Second Brexit deal defeat deepens UK crisis
LONDON — MPs in Westminster dealt another crushing defeat to the Brexit deal agreed between the U.K. and the EU, voting against it by 391 to 242 — a margin of 149.It is the second time that the House of Commons has rejected the deal following the The vote plunges the U.K. deeper into political crisis. Two months of effort to secure changes to the deal, bringing the country to within 17 days of its legal departure date, earned a prize of no more than 39 Conservative MPs switching sides to vote for the agreement. Now May faces the prospect of the House of Commons taking matters firmly out of her hands.Immediately after the vote, May, barely audible because of a sore throat, said she "profoundly" regrets the result, but held by commitments that the House of Commons will vote on Wednesday on whether it is willing to see the U.K. leave the EU without a deal on March 29, and if that is rejected, to have a vote on whether to delay Brexit on Thursday.With her party deeply divided, the no-deal vote will be a free vote for Conservative MPs, May said. But, she warned MPs that if they block no deal and vote for an extension, the EU would want to know what the extension is for before granting it — a decision likely to be made at next week's European Council summit."This house will have to answer that question," May said. "Does it wish to revoke Article 50? Does it want to hold a second referendum? Or does it want to leave with a deal but not this deal? These are unenviable choices, but thanks to the decision the house has made this evening they must now be faced."The prime minister said she has "personally struggled" with whether to back no deal in Wednesday's vote or not."I am passionate about delivering the result of the referendum. But I equally passionately believe that the best way to do that is to leave in an orderly way with a deal and I still believe there is a majority in the House for that course of action," she said, in an apparent indication that she will vote against leaving with no deal.She said the government would publish new information on "essential policies" that would come into force in the event of no deal, including its long-awaited tariff rates and plans for the Northern Ireland border in such a scenario.In his response to May's statement, opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “The prime minister is threatening us all with the danger of no deal, knowing full well the damage it will do to the British economy."“The prime minister has run down the clock and the clock has been run out on her. It’s time that we have a general election and the people can choose who their government should be,” he added.Former Tory minister Nicky Morgan, who backed the deal, said that U.K. politics is now in "completely unprecedented territory.""Conservative MPs who voted against the Withdrawal Agreement have unleashed forces which they are going to struggle to control. Those who wanted Brexit and campaigned for it for years have just taken a step away from the U.K. leaving the EU rather than towards it.”She added though that the defeat now makes May's position as prime minister "very difficult.""Whether she wants to think about it, whether Cabinet say to her we need to think about this, that is what would happen in normal political times, we just don’t live in normal political times,” she added.Tory Brexiteer Richard Bacon disagreed though. "I don’t see any change in the prime minister's position. I know people are talking about it a lot but what matters are the agreements we reach and the treaties we enter into and the laws we adopt," he said.One Tory minister said: “The whole Tory Party is talking about the world beyond [Theresa May].”In a But her Attorney General Geoffrey Cox — a member of the negotiating team and the government's chief legal officer — delivered a legal opinion on the deal that proved fatal to May's chances of getting it through the Commons. He confirmed that the U.K. when Prime Minister Theresa May first called a ratification vote in January. with Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Monday, May achieved a series of "legally binding" additions to the deal that was originally negotiated in November last year. These were aimed at reassuring Brexiteers on her backbenches that the U.K. would not be stuck in the controversial Northern Ireland backstop in perpetuity. to exit the backstop, which led the European Research Group of Tory Brexiteers and the Democratic Unionist Party to conclude they .

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