19 December 2017

Financial Times: May to water down plan to enshrine Brexit day in law

Pro-European Tory MPs had threatened to defeat Mrs May on the issue [an amendment to the legislation that would allow ministers to delay Brexit] following their success last week in forcing the government to grant parliament a “meaningful vote” on the final Brexit deal.

The rebels, working with MPs from opposition parties, argued that Britain might need to delay Brexit to allow parliament to study and ratify a final departure agreement — if talks with the EU ran up to the wire.

Mrs May will accept a compromise amendment, put forward by Oliver Letwin, the former Conservative minister, that would allow ministers to vary the date of Brexit.

Her move is expected to head off a defeat for the government on the eighth and final day of the EU withdrawal bill’s committee stage in the Commons, where MPs have been subjecting the legislation to line by line scrutiny.

Theresa May shows her staying power Tories say that the date was only written into the bill “to make MPs happy”. They argue that the EU treaties would cease to apply in the UK in any event two years after the government trigged the Article 50 notification process on March 29 2017.

Mrs May proclaimed “Brexit Day” in an article on the front page of The Daily Telegraph last month to applause from Eurosceptic Tory MPs, only to spend the next few weeks trying to work out how to stop the plan turning into a Commons defeat.

Mr Letwin’s amendment has been backed by at least 41 Conservative MPs, leaving Mrs May with little alternative but to accept it, even though this could theoretically lead to a short postponement of Brexit. The Tories lost their majority in the Commons at the general election.

The EU withdrawal bill, which transfers European law on to the British statute book after Brexit, will undergo scrutiny next year in the Lords, where it may face further amendment. [...]

Full article on Financial Times (subscription required)

© Financial Times