Chaos in Parliament as May suffers yet another Brexit defeat

The Commons backed an amendment that will force the Prime Minister to come to Parliament with her plan B for leaving the EU within three days if, as expected, her already negotiated agreement is rejected in next Tuesday’s meaningful vote.

Previously May had 21 days before she had to explain to MPs what steps the Government would take.

The defeat makes the prospect of a second vote on Britain’s membership of the EU more likely.

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There was controversy over the vote, which passed 308 to 297, with the Government and Brexiteer Tory MPs saying that it was against the rules of Parliament. The amendment, tabled by Dominic Grieve, the Remain-supporting former attorney general, was to change the Government’s business motion.

Downing Street had thought this unamendable. And according to The Times, the clerks in the Commons who advise Speaker John Bercow had also told him that the it was unamendable.

The Speaker of the House, however, disagreed. “If we only went by precedent, manifestly nothing would ever change,” he said.

For an hour, in incredible scenes, in the face of increasingly furious points of order from Brexiteers, he was forced to defend his decision to allow the vote.

One Tory MP even questioned Bercow’s legitimacy as Speaker, because his wife, Sally Bercow, drives a car with a bumper sticker that says “bollocks to Brexit”.

When put to him in the Commons that the Government’s motion was “unamendable”, Bercow told the Chamber: “My understanding is the motion is amendable, I’m clear in my mind about that.”

After heckles from the Tory benches, he added: “I’m trying to do the right thing and make the right judgements. That is what I have tried to do and what I will go on doing.”

Deputy chairman of the Brexiteer European Research Group of Tory backbenchers, Mark Francois, was livid, yelling “ridiculous” at Bercow’s answers.

Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom noted there were “some concerns” about Bercow’s decision and asked him to confirm that his decision was taken with “full advice” from the Commons clerk and other parliamentary advisers.

She asked him to publish the advice.

Bercow confirmed he consulted the clerk and officials, saying the advice was given to him “privately and that’s absolutely proper”.

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Tory Adam Holloway told Bercow that they had “all noticed in recent months a sticker in your car making derogatory comments about Brexit. Have you driven that car with the sticker on?”

Bercow said that was a “factual error” and told MPs the car belonged to his wife.

He said: “That sticker on the subject of Brexit happens to be affixed to or in the windscreen of my wife’s car, and I’m sure he wouldn’t suggest for one moment that a wife is somehow the property or chattel of her husband. She is entitled to her views, that sticker is not mine and that’s the end of it.”

The stooshie came ahead of the debate on the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal restarting in the Commons.

Last month, facing near certain defeat, May delayed the meaningful vote to allow her to ask Brussels for further concessions and reassurances on the backstop.

Yesterday the Government released a 13-page document revealing that Parliament would have to approve any decision to implement the backstop, the controversial safeguard that kicks in if there’s no agreement reached by Brussels and London by the end of the transition period in December 2020.

If the backstop were deemed necessary, MPs would get to decide whether to implement it, or whether to extend the transition as an alternative.

Ministers also promised a “strong role” for Stormont if the backstop was triggered.

The DUP, however, weren’t impressed and said they would still vote against the Government.

Meanwhile, Labour frontbencher Barry Gardiner said Jeremy Corbyn would table a motion of no confidence in the Government if May’s Brexit deal is voted down. “We’re now talking as if it is expected that the Government next Tuesday will be defeated on the most important piece of legislation that has come before Parliament probably in 50 or more years, that the Government has devoted two years of its time to try to negotiate, and we’re now almost accepting that this will simply be defeated and voted down,” he told the BBC.

“Obviously, the next thing to do immediately after that is for there to be a vote of confidence in the Government.”

The SNP’s Stephen Gethins said Labour were playing catch up with the other opposition parties.