If UK Parliament rejects May's Brexit deal, what's Plan B?
Prime Minister Theresa May must win a vote in parliament to get her Brexit deal approved, or risk seeing Britain's exit from the European Union descend into chaos. If May loses the vote, she is required by parliament to come back within three working days with a motion setting out her next steps. The reality is that the huge uncertainty in the world's fifth largest economy and the likely adverse reaction of financial markets would demand a much quicker political reaction.
- World
- AP
- Published Date: 12:00 | 14 January 2019
- Modified Date: 07:27 | 14 January 2019
SECOND TIME LUCKY
If the deal is rejected by a narrow margin, the government could try again, re-submitting the agreement to Parliament after tweaking it or winning some soothing words from the EU to assuage lawmakers' concerns.
But while EU leaders have offered "clarifications" to the deal, they insist the 585-page withdrawal agreement cannot be reopened.
Any further assurances they give are likely to fall far short of demands by pro-Brexit lawmakers, who want to alter or drop the "backstop," a guarantee for the Irish border that would bind the U.K. in a customs union with the EU after Brexit. The EU says that there can be no deal without the backstop to guarantee an open border along the U.K.'s only land frontier with an EU member state.
The EU would likely be more receptive to a softer Brexit deal that saw Britain remain part of the bloc's single market for goods and services. But May says she will never agree to such a plan and it's unclear whether a majority of lawmakers would support it.