May wins confidence vote

U.K Prime Minister Theresa May won a vote of confidence Wednesday, defeating an attempt by some of her party to oust her and install a new leader to take control of Brexit.

Her victory comes as short-term relief for May but marks a crisis delayed, not averted, at a critical time in negotiations with the European Union.

The prime minister won the vote of Conservative party MPs by 200 votes to 117. The margin of 83 is an uncomfortable one for May, and will do nothing to boost her authority in the party or the country, with only weeks remaining to secure a deal before the U.K. is set to leave the EU on March 29, 2019.

May on Monday delayed a House of Commons vote on the deal she has agreed with Brussels, admitting it would have been rejected "by a significant margin" if the vote had gone ahead. Since then, she has been trying to seek additional assurances from the EU to win over MPs but European leaders have made clear they will not renegotiate the deal.

In an apparent bid to placate her internal critics, May told MPs at a meeting in Westminster before the ballot that she would not fight the 2022 general election — although her precise timetable for departure was left "deliberately vague," according to one senior MP present.

Speaking in Downing Street after the result was announced, May acknowledged that a “significant number of colleagues” had chosen not to back her, but vowed to “get on with the job”and pledged to ask the EU for “legal and political assurances that assuage the concerns” MPs have about her Brexit deal.

Leading Euroskeptic MP Jacob Rees-Mogg described the result as "terrible" for the prime minister and called on her to quit. "Under all constitutional norms she ought to go and see the Queen urgently and resign," he told the BBC.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour party, said the vote made no difference to the fundamentals of May's position.

“The prime minister has lost her majority in parliament, her government is in chaos and she is unable to deliver a Brexit deal that works for the country and puts jobs and the economy first," he said, calling on May to bring her deal back to parliament for a vote next week.

The only relief for May is that another party vote of confidence cannot be held for an entire year. While the prime minister remains vulnerable to defeat over her Brexit plan in parliament, her hardline Brexiteer opponents will wonder if they triggered the vote prematurely.

Brexit-supporting MPs believe her deal will bind the U.K. too closely to EU rules. The Labour opposition is against, arguing they could negotiate a more economically beneficial deal, while other major opposition parties and some Labour MPs want a second referendum to give the U.K. the chance to reverse Brexit and remain in the EU.

Together, they have formed a large majority against May's deal and it remains unclear how May can get her deal past the House of Commons, or what path the U.K. will take if she cannot. If no alternative path wins the support of parliament, the U.K. is currently set to leave the EU without a deal – an outcome that is widely expected to cause major economic disruption.

Conservative Brexiteers and May's Northern Irish backers, the Democratic Unionist Party are also deeply opposed to the Irish backstop — a clause in the deal that guarantees no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but which would require the U.K. to effectively remain inside the EU's customs union.

Nigel Dodds, deputy leader of the DUP, told the BBC May had now made commitments on the backstop to her own backbenchers and to his party, and they would now "wait and see."

"Whatever she says, it is what is delivered in terms of the text that we will be examining very closely,” Dodds said.

The prime minister said she would seek "additional reassurances" from EU leaders that the Irish backstop would never be triggered, and would not be permanent if it were. On Thursday she will attend the European Council summit in Brussels to press her case.

She has set a 21 January deadline for passing a deal in parliament — a date that would give her little more than two months to implement the plan or prepare the country for no-deal exit.

Source: POLITICO