Brexit: Government Forced to Back Down

Theresa May’s Government has made its most important backdown yet on Brexit, reluctantly agreeing to allow Parliament to vote on any final Brexit agreement with the EU.

“This agreement will only hold if parliament approves it,” Brexit Secretary David Davis told the House of Commons.

The Government had furiously resisted giving Parliament any veto over the final deal but was forced into the backdown by resistance from dissident Tory MPs and opposition parties.

Davis said the concession did not mean that Parliament could stop Brexit because if MPs do reject any final deal reached by the British Government and the EU the Government would still not seek to stop Brexit.

That would mean the UK crashing out of the European bloc with no new arrangements with Europe.

Opponents of the Government’s handling of Brexit welcomed the late backdown as proof that Theresa May’s Cabinet realises it does not have enough support among its own MPs to bulldoze through its “no deal is better than a bad deal” path to Brexit.

Davis said Parliament would not get a say if the British-EU negotiations broke down before Brexit, leaving the UK facing a “no deal” hard Brexit.

Tory Dissidents

Anna Soubry (left), one of the most outspoken Tory opponents of a hard Brexit, expressed fears that the Government was bracing itself for the failure of the floundering talks with the EU.

“The Government is preparing for a hard Brexit – no deal,” she told the Guardian.

Davis told the House of Commons that the terms of Brexit, including the rights of expat citizens and the size of Britain’s “divorce bill” payment for the commitments it made while a member of the EU, would be made law through a new Act of Parliament.

Such an Act had been a key demand of Tory dissidents, who have argued that the Brexiteers’ promise to “take back control” from Brussels must involve giving the UK Parliament power over the process.

Labour’s Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer called Davis’s backdown “a significant climbdown from a weak Government on the verge of defeat.”

“For months, Labour has been calling on ministers to guarantee Parliament a final say on the withdrawal agreement,” he said. “With less than 24 hours before they had to defend their flawed Bill to Parliament, they have finally backed down. However, like everything with this Government, the devil will be in the detail.”

“Ministers must now go further. They need to accept Labour’s amendments that would ensure transitional arrangements, and protect jobs and the economy from a cliff edge.”

Still Unhappy

Labour MP Chuka Umunna (left) complained that the Government’s backdown did not guarantee that the parliamentary vote would come before the UK actually left the EU.

“David Davis’s announcement just now that there will be an Act of Parliament to approve a final EU deal is totally insufficient: he gave no guarantee of a meaningful vote before 29 March 2019 and this doesn’t cover the event of there being no deal,” Umunna said.

The Tory MP and former Attorney-General Dominic Grieve said it would not be acceptable for the Government to allow the parliamentary vote to happen after Britain had already left the EU.

Grieve and other Tory MPs who are unhappy with the Government’s approach believe the slow progress in negotiations with the EU suggests there could easily be no deal or a last-minute deal, rendering Davis’s new concessions meaningless.

“Surely the answer is that if we run out of time” on sealing a deal then the talks with Brussels should be extended “so that all parties are able to deal with it,” Grieve said.

 

by Peter Wilson

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