London: British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday called on her rebellious MPs to do the “patriotic” thing to strike an “honourable compromise” over Brexit as she prepares to table her twice-defeated withdrawal agreement to another Parliament vote next week, hoping it would prove third time lucky for her.
Her latest plea came at the end of a frenetic week in Westminster as MPs voted on a flurry of motions, not just ruling out leaving the European Union (EU) with May’s deal but also without any deal in place at all, calling for a delay to the March 29 Brexit Day deadline.
May warned deeply divided Brexiteers within her own party and across the House of Commons that failure to once again support her deal, which was defeated by a resounding 230-vote margin in January and a smaller 149-vote margin last week, would mean the UK may not leave the EU for many months and may even rule out Brexit altogether.
She urged MPs to get behind her “improved deal” before a European Council summit in Brussels next week, with legally binding changes to the controversial Irish backstop clause addressing concerns that the UK could be tied to EU rules indefinitely.
“If Parliament can find a way to back the Brexit deal before European Council, the UK will leave the EU this spring, without having to take part in the European elections… If it cannot, we will not leave the EU for many months, if ever,” she writes in The Sunday Telegraph. Meanwhile, the Theresa May government warned on Sunday it could scrap a planned Brexit vote this week unless it felt it could win and avoid a long-term EU withdrawal delay.
“It would be difficult to justify having a vote if you knew you were going to lose it,” International Trade Secretary Liam Fox told Sky News. “We will only bring the deal back if we are confident that enough of our colleagues… are prepared to support it so that we can get it through parliament,” finance minister Philip Hammond added on the BBC.
