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BREXIT MAYHEM
Almost three years after the June 2016 referendum in Britain in which 51.9 percent of Britons voted to leave the European Union (EU), British lawmakers on Tuesday crushed Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit strategy by a huge margin.
The vote – 432 against and 202 in favour of the deal – is the worst defeat in modern British Parliamentary history. It could trigger political chaos that could lead to a disorderly exit of Britain from the EU or a reversal of the 2016 decision to leave.
More than 100 conservative members of Parliament from May’s party who had earlier supported the Brexit deal joined forces with the opposition Labour Party to defeat it. The huge vote margin against the deal was a humiliating loss for the Prime Minister. The defeat undermined her proposal for an amicable exit by Britain from the EU. It was the first British Parliamentary defeat of a Treaty since 1864.
Moments after the results of the vote were announced, the leader of the Opposition Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, promptly tabled a no-confidence motion in Parliament against Prime Minister May’s government, which if passed, could have triggered a national election in Britain. However, the motion was defeated.
This was a reminder to us here, of what the leader of the opposition in Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, did right after the November 12 Local Government Elections.
But if there was any consolation for Prime Minister May, many of her conservative party members who were vehement opponents of the Brexit deal, and even the small Irish Party, which had propped up her minority government but voted against the deal, signalled their readiness to vote against the no-confidence motion. They delivered on this the following day as the government won that vote 325-306.
However, it was still clear that the British Parliament did not support the proposed Brexit deal.
A determined Theresa May, with no alternative proposal, told Parliament that she accepted the verdict, but regretted that the vote essentially did not honour the decision of the people in the referendum. May told the nation that she could still create an Accord with the EU, but many prominent opponents, including members of her party have disagreed.
With the March 29 deadline fast approaching for Britain to exit the EU, opponents of the Brexit have urged the Prime Minister to seek better terms from the EU. But this may not happen, because Britain is now ensnared in the deepest political crisis in more than a half century as it grapples with how or whether to exit the EU, which it joined 45 years ago in 1973.
Even though the EU has made it pellucid that the Brexit deal is the best Britain could get to ensure an orderly withdrawal, it has become more likely that Britain would seek a postponement of the March 29th deadline or consider reversing Brexit altogether.
Ever since the June 2016 referendum, Britain has remained a divided country over its membership in the EU, which was forged by France and Germany after their devastation in World War II.
Britain is now at a crossroads, due largely to the weak hand that Prime Minister May had drawn in the Brexit negotiations. EU countries had also faced a political imperative. It could not have allowed Britain an unscathed withdrawal from the union, because it would allow other members faced with internal political pressure to believe that a painless exit is an option. Exacting its pound of flesh from Britain is crucial to its own existence, and it has already signaled this to all member states.
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