CHRISTMAS, thankfully, will not be cancelled at Westminster.
Downing St confirmed that the meaningful vote on Theresa May’s Brexit Plan – the one that was pulled so dramatically on Tuesday – will now not go ahead this side of Christmas. It will be next year sometime; between when the Commons returns on Monday January 7 and Thursday January 17.
Following the political hangover of the Tories’ confidence vote, the victrix - of sorts - was in Brussels seeking “further reassurances” and admitting she was not expecting an immediate breakthrough. You don’t say.
While Juncker, Tusk, Varadkar, Macron et al have been saying that it might be possible to discuss “clarifications” on the backstop, they have equally been adamant that the Withdrawal Agreement, a legally binding document, cannot be reopened.
Despite No 10 not wanting to answer questions about how Mrs May was now a lame duck premier with Brexiteer colleagues continuing to call for her to go, the result on Wednesday night has weakened further an already seriously enfeebled Tory leader.
The size of the rebellion underscores the task facing the PM to get her tweaked or otherwise deal through the Commons in the New Year.
If you add the 117 Tory rebels to the Opposition forces, who already had no confidence in the PM, and who would overwhelmingly oppose the May Plan, then the figure gets to as high as 439. While Mrs May’s supporters in the Tory Party number just 200. So to win, she has to find 170 new allies.
At the pre-vote 1922 Committee meeting, the PM emphasised the importance of coming back from Brussels with something the Democratic Unionists could sign up to.
But, whichever way you cut it and however much those “clarifications” are termed in the warmest of words, the fundamental impasse remains: the EU wants control over when the Irish backstop would end, meaning the UK could not legally pull out of its own accord.
One of the most arresting comments in the process came this week from Liam Fox, the Trade Secretary, when he suggested that a) if Mrs May failed to remove the backstop impasse, he could not support her deal and b) he was “not even sure if the Cabinet will agree for it to be put to the House of Commons”.
But while the Tories continue to be in turmoil, Jeremy Corbyn has his own Brexit dilemma.
Earlier this week, a cross-party alliance demanded the Labour leader call a confidence vote in the Tory Government. The SNP’s Ian Blackford urged Mr C to show some responsibility and warned him that if the Labour leader did not call a confidence vote, he would. But nothing happened.
Now, it seems, at the next Brexit flashpoint when Mrs May gives her Commons statement about the European Council on Monday, things could come quickly to a head. If, as many expect, the PM simply stands up and says she is continuing to seek assurances from the EU on the backstop, then the Opposition benches will fly into a frenzy.
Mr Corbyn will be under intense pressure to call that confidence vote with SNP figures saying if he does not, then the Nationalists will.
But if Mrs May survived another such vote – as many expect she would - then the Labour leader would be faced with his own pressure to endorse a People’s Vote; something, it is thought, he simply does not want to do because he does not believe in it. His chum, Unite’s Len McCluskey, is strongly opposed to having another EU referendum for fear it would alienate all those Labour Leavers.
So while Mrs May grapples this week with the Brexit monster, next week she might be joined by Mr Corbyn.
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