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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson puts his last-minute Brexit deal to a vote in an extraordinary sitting of the British parliament on Saturday, a day of reckoning that could decide the course of the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union.
More than three years since the United Kingdom voted 52-48 to be the first sovereign country to leave the European project, Mr Johnson will try to win parliament’s approval for the divorce treaty he struck in Brussels on Thursday.
In a day of Brexit high drama, lawmakers convene for the first Saturday sitting since the 1982 Argentine invasion of the Falklands, while hundreds of thousands of people are due to march to parliament demanding another referendum.
Mr Johnson depicted the vote in parliament as the last chance to secure an orderly Brexit. Though he is obliged by law to seek a Brexit delay if his deal falls, Mr Johnson said the United Kingdom would still leave on October 31st. He didn’t explain how.
The so-called “Super Saturday” Brexit extravaganza tops a frenetic week which saw Mr Johnson confound his opponents by clinching a new Brexit deal only to find his Northern Irish allies oppose the deal he struck.
In a divided parliament where he has no majority and opponents are plotting maximum political damage ahead of an imminent election, Mr Johnson must now win the support of 320 lawmakers to pass his deal through a booby-trapped legislature.
Handful of votes
With a number of hardline Brexiteers still undecided and a group of expelled Conservatives divided over how to vote, the outcome is expected to depend on a handful of votes.
Early on Saturday morning, the ERG’s Bernard Jenkin appeared to confirm that he and the rest of the group would be backing the deal.
He tweeted: “This deal is hundreds of miles from perfect. It has terrible elements, but we are where we are. At least BackBoris has substantially improved it and it now points in a far more positive direction for our country.”
Addressing parliament on Saturday morning Mr Johnson urged MPs to back his Brexit deal telling them that the time had come to heal the rift in British politics over the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
He said the agreement he has struck with Brussels would allow the UK to leave “whole and entire” on October 31st.
However he faces another hurdle with opposition MPs threatening to vote for an amendment withholding approval until legislation to implement the deal is in place.
Sir Oliver Letwin, the former Cabinet minister who had the Tory whip withdrawn after rebelling over Brexit, said it was an “insurance policy” to prevent Britain “crashing out” without a deal.
Mr Johnson called for MPs to reconcile their differences over Brexit.
He told MPs: “The House will need no reminding that this is the second deal and the fourth vote, three-and-a-half years after the nation voted for Brexit.
“And during those years friendships have been strained, families divided and the attention of this House consumed by a single issue that has at times felt incapable of resolution.
“But I hope that this is the moment when we can finally achieve that resolution and reconcile the instincts that compete within us.”
He said any further delay to Brexit would be “pointless, expensive and deeply corrosive of public trust”.
Beginning his address to the House of Commons shortly after 9.30am the Prime Minister thanked parliamentary staff for “giving up their Saturdays” and missing the end of England’s World Cup Rugby tie with Australia. “I wish I could watch it myself.”
He added: “I do hope that in assembling for the purposes of a meaningful vote that we will indeed be allowed to have a meaningful vote this evening.”
‘Duped’
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said his MPs would “not be duped” into supporting the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal.
He told the Commons: “(Mr Johnson) has renegotiated the Withdrawal Agreement and made it even worse. He has renegotiated the Political Declaration and made that even worse.”
He bemoaned the lack of an economic impact assessment and accompanying legal advice for the Brexit deal.
Mr Corbyn added Mr Johnson has made “empty promises” on workers’ rights and the environment.
He said: “This Government cannot be trusted and these benches will not be duped.”
Mr Corbyn concluded that “voting for a deal today won’t end Brexit. It won’t deliver certainty and the people should have the final say”, adding: “We will not back this sell-out deal.”
DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds told the Commons: “Weariness in this House over Brexit should not be an excuse for weakness on Brexit or weakness on the union.”
He said there must be “Brexit for the whole of the United Kingdom”, leaving the single market and customs union as one.
Mr Dodds raised concerns over Northern Ireland’s involvement in the VAT regime and the single market “without any consent up front” before claiming: “It drives a coach and horses through the Belfast Agreement by altering the cross-community consent mechanism.”
Mr Dodds then alluded to previous warnings from Mr Johnson about how no British PM could agree to such terms, adding: “Will he now abide by that and please reconsider the fact that we must leave as one nation together?”
Replying Mr Johnson said together he and the DUP secured changes on the customs union before defending the measures in the deal for Northern Ireland. He said: “In all frankness I do think it a pity that it is thought necessary for one side or the other in the debate in Northern Ireland to have a veto on those arrangements.
“Because after all, I must be very frank about this, the people of this country have taken a great decision embracing the entire four nations of this country by a simple majority vote that went 52-48, which we’re honouring now. I think that principle should be applied elsewhere and I see no reason why it should not be applied in Northern Ireland, and it is in full compatibility with the Good Friday Agreement.”
Delicate balance
Former British prime ministers Tony Blair and John Major have meanwhile warned that Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, which the DUP opposes, could upset the delicate balance in Northern Ireland put in place by the Belfast Agreement. In a joint video with Mr Blair for the People’s Vote campaign that advocates a second Brexit referendum, Mr Major said a border in the Irish Sea would fuel unionist fears.
“It splits Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom. And that, of course, always plays on the inherent fears of Northern Ireland, that they’re being ignored, that they’re being maltreated. And those fears are very real. And they need to be addressed and they need to be assuaged,” he said.
Mr Johnson spent Friday trying to woo skeptical MPs in his own party as well as opposition Labour politicians who represent pro-Brexit districts. The result looks set to be too close to call, and Mr Johnson’s team believe they’re making progress, according to an official who declined to be named.
“Imagine what it could be like tomorrow evening, if we have settled this, and we have respected the will of the people, because we will then have a chance to move on,” Mr Johnson said in an interview with BBC TV on Friday. “This has been a long, exhausting and quite divisive business.”
Mr Johnson received a boost from the EU when French President Emmanuel Macron said even if Parliament rejected the deal, there would be no further delay to Brexit day beyond the current deadline of October 31st.
That added to the pressure on MPs who would prefer another extension to the deadline to leaving the EU without a deal.
Persuade
If he wins the vote, Mr Johnson will go down in history as the leader who delivered a Brexit – for good or bad – that pulls the United Kingdom far out of the EU’s orbit.
Should he fail, Mr Johnson will face the humiliation of Brexit unravelling after repeatedly promising that he would get it done – “do or die” – by October 31st.
The debate in the House of Commons will be followed by votes on amendments and finally – if all goes according to the government’s plan – his deal.
To win the vote, though, Mr Johnson must persuade enough Brexit-supporting rebels in both his own Conservative Party and the opposition Labour Party to back his deal. His Northern Irish allies and the three main opposition parties oppose it.
In a boost for Mr Johnson, some influential hardline Brexit supporters such as Mark Francois and Iain Duncan Smith said they would support the deal.
Yet Mr Johnson must navigate a legislative jungle that his opponents are trying to booby trap with amendments that could wreck his path to Brexit.
Amendment
Letwin has proposed that the decision on whether to back a deal be deferred until all the legislation needed to implement the terms of the deal has been passed through parliament.
This proposal, which has cross-party support and even Mr Johnson’s Northern Irish allies said they might back it, will be put to a vote at the end of Saturday’s debate if selected by Speaker John Bercow. If the amendment is approved by parliament, Mr Johnson’s deal would not then be put to a vote on Saturday.
That would be a major setback that would leave Brexit, yet again, up in the air as hundreds of thousands of protesters rally outside the 800-year-old parliament in central London to demand another referendum.
The Letwin move, aimed at preventing the United Kingdom from somehow dropping out of the EU without a deal, would in effect force Mr Johnson to delay Brexit until all the laws needed to leave have passed through parliament’s multi-stage approval process.
Even though Mr Johnson believes this can be achieved by October 31st, others think it would need a short ‘technical’ delay.
A law passed by Mr Johnson’s opponents obliges him to ask the EU for a Brexit delay until January 31st 2020 unless he has secured approval for his deal by the end of Saturday.
“My aim is to ensure that Boris’s deal succeeds,” Mr Letwin said. “But that we have an insurance policy which prevents the UK from crashing out on 31 October by mistake if something goes wrong during the passage of the implementing legislation.”
If Mr Johnson’s deal is rejected, there may also be a vote on whether to leave without a deal and also whether to hold another referendum.
DUP to consider amendment
Mr Dodds said on Saturday morning that the DUP would look at whether or not to back the Letwin amendment.
“It is a very interesting amendment. We are going to look at that very closely, and examine it. It does have the merit of pointing out that this would withhold approval of the Commons from the Government’s plans. So, we haven’t made any final decision on that, we will meet later and discuss as a parliamentary group… tactics,” he said.
Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay said however the Government wanted to block the Letwin amendment. Mr Barclay told the BBC: “It will add further delay, further dither, further uncertainty, which is bad for investment, bad for our economy.”
In Brussels on Friday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that although Ireland would be favourable towards any request, MPs should not assume there will be an extension if they vote to reject the deal today.
“Our point of view has always been that we would be open to it, but it would be a mistake to assume that it’s a guarantee, given that it requires unanimity by all 27 member states.”
The Taoiseach moved to reassure unionists about the constitutional implications of the new Brexit deal, saying at the conclusion of the EU summit in Brussels that “the queen will still be the queen, the pound will still be the pound , people will still post letters in Royal Mail red letterboxes”.
Mr Varadkar said that he was “confident” Stormont would not vote to leave the special arrangements agreed in the new deal and precipitate a hardening of the Border.
“If there is a risk we are taking, the risk we are taking is one on democracy and saying to the people of Northern Ireland that you determine your future and that is something I can stand over,” he said.
Mr Dodds said: “If Leo Varadkar thinks unionism is just about red post boxes then he is either very ill-informed or else just wishes to be offensive.”
He complained that “a new trade barrier will have been erected between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom without the consent of anyone who lives here”.
– Agencies
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