Brexit: MPs asked to vote on withdrawal agreement only

MPs will be asked to vote again on Brexit on Friday but only on part of the deal negotiated with the EU.

They will vote on the withdrawal agreement on the Irish “backstop”, divorce bill and citizens’ rights.

But it will not amount to a third “meaningful vote” on the deal, as it will not include a vote on the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

Amid anger from MPs, Andrea Leadsom said it was “crucial” if the UK wanted to secure a Brexit delay until 22 May.

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MPs will be debating the motion on the day the UK was supposed to leave the European Union – 29 March.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said Theresa May was essentially asking MPs to turn it into a game of two halves – just voting on the first part of the deal which sorts out the UK’s departure and leaving the longer term part for the next few weeks.

But it is still not certain it will get through – both Labour and the Democratic Unionist Party say they will vote against the withdrawal agreement on Friday.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the withdrawal agreement could not be separated from the political declaration “because otherwise you move into a blindfold Brexit”.

The DUP’s deputy leader Nigel Dodds said he was not expecting “any last minute rabbits out of the hat” that would change the party’s position.

The vote, on what was meant to be Brexit Day, is a request to MPs to allow her to keep going, to carry on pursuing her route, with its well-documented flaws.

There’s a challenge there too, not just to her own Brexiteers but to Labour and the other opposition parties, to say “no” to a long delay to our departure from the EU, the last moment when Number 10 believes anything even approaching a timely exit can be guaranteed.

There are signs now of course that many Eurosceptic MPs are ready to say yes – not because they suddenly have realised her deal is perfect but because more of them officially realise that it is the clearest break from the EU they can realistically hope for.

Yet her Northern Irish allies are not persuaded. Labour, even though they have sometimes accepted that what’s on the table tomorrow, the divorce deal, will never be unpicked by the EU, will still, in the main, resist.

Source: BBC.com