Watch: UK lawmakers vote on PM Theresa May’s Brexit ‘plan B’
- Prime minister presented plan to parliament last week after her initial deal was comprehensively rejected on January 15
- They will also vote on amendments that will indicate whether lawmakers have the numbers to instigate a legally-binding parliamentary takeover of the Brexit process
Theresa May faces losing control of Brexit to parliament on Tuesday in a series of crucial votes that will shape Britain’s split from the European Union.
Despite a last minute gamble aimed at buying off rebels in her Conservative Party, the prime minister will face a knife-edge battle to block a proposal that would hand the parliament the power to delay the process and prevent a no-deal divorce.
The leadership of the opposition Labour Party was preparing to order its MPs to vote for the amendment, put forward by Labour’s Yvette Cooper and Tory Nick Boles as May scrambled for a compromise all sides could support.
In a dramatic meeting Monday evening, the prime minister effectively abandoned the agreement she’s spent the past 18 months negotiating with the EU and threw the weight of her government behind a separate proposal to rewrite the deal.
May urged hundreds of Conservative politicians crammed into a room inside the parliament to support another amendment that would strip out the so-called backstop plan for the Irish border, wrecking a compromise she’s agreed to with the EU in the hope of securing one with her own party.
May’s move was intended to win over hardline Brexit backers who joined with opposition MPs on January 15 to reject her EU divorce package. It was the biggest government defeat in the House of Commons for more than a century and prompted two weeks of soul-searching and debate over how to resolve the impasse inside the government.