15 March 2019 - Brexit to be delayed by three months
May Suffers Mass Tory Revolt As MPs Vote For Three-Month Brexit Delay
Paul Waugh (The Huffington Post, 14/03/2019)
Theresa May has suffered a mass Tory revolt by her ministers and MPs as she caved to pressure to delay Brexit by three months.
Amid shambolic scenes in Parliament, the prime minister’s tattered authority took a fresh blow when more than half her party opposed her government move to postpone exit day from March 29 to June 30.
Some seven Cabinet ministers, including her Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay, voted against May’s motion, which was aimed at giving her extra time to get her EU-UK divorce deal passed and put on the statute book.
Earlier, she had seen off a dramatic attempt by parliament to seize control of the Brexit process.
Brexit: What happens now?
Peter Barnes (BBC News, 15/03/2019)
Now MPs have backed a delay, Theresa May has to request an extension to Article 50 from the EU.
Assuming the other member states all agreed, Brexit would be postponed. Theresa May says this should be for no longer than three months. But she has also raised the prospect of a much longer extension if MPs won't back her deal.
There are still plenty of possible outcomes.
Brexit has taken a notable step backwards
Luke McGee (CNN, 14/03/2019)
It's tempting to believe the cliche that in Brexit, nothing ever changes.
But after three nights of dramatic, confusing and chaotic votes in the House of Commons, things are looking a little different.
We now know that on Thursday of next week (March 21), Prime Minister Theresa May will ask the European Union to extend the Article 50 Brexit deadline. For how long depends on whether or not her Brexit divorce deal is approved by her own lawmakers before that date.As things stand, her deal looks no closer to passing a vote in parliament. On Thursday, 188 members of her own party voted against the government's motion to delay Brexit.
Only two things of late have carried a majority among lawmakers: opposing a no-deal Brexit and delaying Brexit, which both sound distinctly un-Brexity. And neither is entirely within the United Kingdom's control.
The Guardian view on Brexit delay: time to let reality in
(The Guardian, 14/03/2019)
For nearly two years, Britain has known when it is supposed to leave the EU. Its politics have been consumed by the question of how. There has been less exploration of why. The simplest answer is that a majority voted to do so and that their preference should, on democratic principle, be respected. But when the government has failed to find a safe Brexit path, to proceed regardless of the consequences is to risk being wantonly destructive. Just such a point of failure has been reached. A vote by MPs last night recognising the need to delay the 29 March departure date proves it. But there is no more clarity about the purpose of such an extension than there is about the ultimate goals of Brexit itself.
An amendment calling for another referendum was soundly beaten. That cannot be the end of the idea. Labour abstained, with many of its MPs supporting a public vote in principle but believing the question had been put prematurely. Such tactics aside, a clear majority of MPs are currently committed to quitting the EU. Sadly, intent alone doesn’t bring practical solutions closer.
Despite U.K. Vote, 'Hard Brexit' Is Not Off The Table
Kenneth Rapoza (Forbes, 13/03/2019)
The U.K. Parliament voted today to eliminate the threat of a hard Brexit by taking the chance of crashing out of the European Union before the March 29 deadline is off the table on Wednesday. But BNP Paribas warned that the odds of a no-deal Brexit are not zero.
The French multinational gives it 25% odds.
Today’s vote means the Article 50 rule, invoked in March 2017, will either have to be extended or the U.K. will have to miraculously come to a Brexit deal with the EU before the two-year deadline in just over two weeks. Considering the Brits have spent the last two years failing to agree on how a split from the EU, the odds of them figuring it out in two weeks are probably zero. An extension is likely. Either the British MPs are listening to the market, or the market’s crystal ball is working after failing to correctly predict Brexit in the first place.