13 March 2019 - Brexit: Theresa May’s deal rejected a second time
Brexit: MPs reject Theresa May's deal for a second time
(BBC News, 13/03/2019)
Theresa May's EU withdrawal deal has been rejected by MPs by an overwhelming majority for a second time, with just 17 days to go to Brexit.
MPs voted down the prime minister's deal by 149 - a smaller margin than when they rejected it in January.
Mrs May said MPs will now get a vote on whether the UK should leave the EU without a deal and, if that fails, on whether Brexit should be delayed.
The Brexit Plan Just Failed Again: What Happened, and What’s Next?
(The New York Times, 12/03/2019)
Parliament’s rebuke to Prime Minister Theresa May, on the issue that has dominated British politics for three years, casts the nation’s political and economic future into confusion with just 17 days left until its scheduled exit from the European Union.
The vote is sure to intensify calls for her to either step down, call a general election, or both. Plenty of Conservative lawmakers would like to take her place as party leader and prime minister, but there is no obvious front-runner, and the outcome of a general election is just as unclear.
Second Brexit deal defeat deepens UK crisis
Charlie Cooper and Annabelle Dickson (Politico Europe, 13/03/2019)
MPs in Westminster dealt another crushing defeat to the Brexit deal agreed between the U.K. and the EU, voting against it by 391 to 242 — a margin of 149.
It is the second time that the House of Commons has rejected the deal following the thumping 230-vote margin of defeat when Prime Minister Theresa May first called a ratification vote in January.
The vote plunges the U.K. deeper into political crisis. Two months of effort to secure changes to the deal, bringing the country to within 17 days of its legal departure date, earned a prize of no more than 39 Conservative MPs switching sides to vote for the agreement.
Brexit may no longer mean Brexit
Ishaan Tharoor (The Washington Post, 13/03/2019)
British Prime Minister Theresa May endured another humiliating blow in Parliament on Tuesday as lawmakers once more voted down her withdrawal plan from the European Union. The margin of defeat — 149 votes — was only a slight improvement from the 230-vote repudiation May’s deal received in January. The prime minister spent weeks trying to thrash out a more politically suitable deal and desperately tried to frame new concessions she won from European interlocutors as sufficient to get the deal done. But not enough members of her own ruling Tories were convinced.
May’s government is technically supposed to take Britain out of the European Union in just over two weeks’ time. But that and so much more about the political future of Europe’s second-largest economy is now in limbo.