THERESA May and Jeremy Corbyn took the huff yesterday as another extraordinary day in Westminster took its toll on the two.
The leader of the opposition was ridiculed for flouncing out of a crunch Brexit crisis meeting with all the other party leaders. He said he didn’t want to be in the same room as Chuka Umanna, the former Labour MP who created The Independent Group.
But his sulk was nothing compared to Theresa May’s, who used an unexpectedly aggressive televised broadcast to the nation to blame MPs for rejecting her botched deal and delaying Brexit. After a bitter day in which she was attacked by both Remain and Leave Tories, the Prime Minister tried to go over the heads of politicians and appeal directly to the public.
Speaking from behind the podium at Number 10, and looking straight down the camera, May told the country: “I am on your side”.
“This delay is a matter of great personal regret for me. And of this I am absolutely sure: You, the public, have had enough.
“You’re tired of the infighting, you’re tired of the political games and the arcane procedural rows, tired of MPs talking about nothing else but Brexit when you have real concerns about our children’s schools, our National Health Service, knife crime. You want this stage of the Brexit process to be over and done with.
“I agree,” she said. “It is now time for MPs to decide.”
The Prime Minister said Parliament had done “everything possible to avoid making a choice”.
May’s decision to attack MPs will likely not have done much to help win over MPs when her deal next goes before Parliament.
There was no mention of the third meaningful vote on her deal, or MV3 as it’s known, in her statement, but it’s understood some MPs have been told to expect it on Monday.
Though it’s not entirely clear how. The debate was supposed to have happened this week, but Speaker John Bercow ruled it out of order, saying it would be wrong to ask MPs to vote on something they have already rejected.
It could only come back, he said, if there were fundamental differences.
May has written to Donald Tusk, the head of the European Council, ahead of today’s summit, asking for a short extension to the Brexit negotiating process, but yesterday he said that would only be likely if there was a chance the deal could get passed in Parliament.
In her statement the Prime Minister repeated her claim from earlier in the day that she was “not prepared to delay Brexit any further” than June 30.
Nicola Sturgeon was not impressed: “The one thing missing from that pointless PM speech was any acknowledgement of the massive responsibility she bears for this mess. She could have changed course after the first defeat of her deal. But she is still trying to force a choice between a bad deal and no deal. Shameful.”
Meanwhile, Labour attempted to defend Corbyn walking away from the meeting of party leaders, with a spokesman for the party blaming Number 10.
The veteran left winger was supposed to attend a summit at May’s office in the Commons, but when saw the The Independent Group politician standing with the SNP’s Ian Blackford, Vince Cable from the LibDems, and Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville Roberts and Green MP Caroline Lucas, he turned on his heel and left.
Cable called it a “strange way to behave at a moment of national crisis”.
“Jeremy Corbyn’s kinder, gentler politics was found wanting as he stomped out of the meeting before it began rather than breathe the same air as Chuka Umunna.”
Blackford said it was a “classic misjudgement by the so-called leader of the opposition. We were all supposed to go in together and he chose not to.”
A Labour spokesman said Corbyn had left because “it was not the meeting that had been agreed and the terms were broken”.
“Downing St is in such chaos that they were unable to manage their own proposed meeting,” he added.
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