LONDON — Faced with a devastating loss in Parliament, British Prime Minister Theresa May announced Monday that she would delay a vote on the Brexit deal she negotiated with the European Union and instead return to Brussels to ask for more concessions.
“If we went ahead and held the vote tomorrow, the deal would be rejected by a significant margin,” May conceded to a packed chamber in the House of Commons.
Nearly 100 members of her own Conservative Party had signaled they would vote against her half-in, half-out version of Brexit.
The pound sterling plummeted and the stock markets in the United States and Europe sank on news of Brexit chaos.
May was clear she would not tear up the negotiated 600-page withdrawal agreement — she said again it was the best available deal — but will “do all that I can to secure the reassurances this House requires to get this deal over the line and deliver for the British people.”
Yet it remains unclear what Europe can offer May to placate her domestic critics. E.U. leaders have never had much patience for Britain’s domestic squabbling, since most view Brexit as a self-inflicted wound.
“This deal is the best and only deal possible. We will not renegotiate,” said Mina Andreeva, a European Commission spokeswoman.
May’s humiliation in Parliament does little to bolster her cause in Brussels, as Europeans leaders wonder how long the weakened British prime minister can hang on to power.
In her remarks to members of Parliament, May said the “fundamental question” remains: “Does this House want to deliver Brexit?”
Some lawmakers shouted back: “No!”
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour party, asked why Parliament should believe May could get any better deal than the one her government has spent the last two years negotiating.
A person dressed as British Prime Minister Theresa May at a “Brexit Fudge” pop-up shop organized by pro-Europe activists Best for Britain outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Monday Dec. 10, 2018. (Tim Ireland/AP)
“The government has lost control of events and is in complete disarray,” Corbyn said. He said that despite knowing that the majority British lawmakers didn’t support her deal, she “plowed on regardless.” He added that “bringing back the same botched deal, either next week or in January… will not change its fundamental flaws.”
It is unclear when a rescheduled vote could be held. May, whose preferred style is to kick the can down the road, didn’t say when the vote would happen. The House of Commons Twitter feed suggested that the ultimate deadline for a meaningful vote was March 28, the day before Britain is set to leave the E.U. When May was asked about this in Parliament, she suggested that Jan. 21 was the deadline that applied.
If May manages to get better terms from the Europeans? She could return to Parliament later this month or in early January, at the latest.
International Trade Secretary Liam Fox told the BBC he would prefer the vote be after Christmas rather than rushed through in December.
On the sidelines, Tory leaders have been jostling for position to replace the prime minister if she resigns or is booted out in a no-confidence vote.
And those who want Britain to remain in the European Union have taken some solace in the delay.
Also on Monday, the E.U.’s highest court ruled that Britain could unilaterally reverse its decision to split from the 28-nation political bloc — in a verdict that was expected but also gave a boost to anti-Brexit campaigners.
The decision made clear that Britain has the ability to reverse itself any time before the March 29 deadline to leave the European Union.
There had been a legal question about whether a reversal would require the consent of the other 27 E.U. members, but the binding decision made clear that little stands in London’s way — should it want to stay in the club.
“The United Kingdom is free to revoke unilaterally the notification of its intention to withdraw from the E.U.,” the European Court of Justice said in its announcement.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called out May for “pathetic cowardice” in delaying the vote.
Steve Baker, a Tory member of Parliament who supports a hard Brexit, said the terms of May’s deal were “so bad that they didn’t dare put it to Parliament for a vote.” He added, “This isn’t the mark of a stable government or a strong plan.”
European diplomats say they are unwilling to consider any deal that leaves open the possibility of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. That means that reopening the 585-page withdrawal agreement is probably off the table — even though that is the major source of the British objections.
In Parliament on Monday, May struggled to make the case that preserving peace between north and south in Ireland was a promise that Britain must keep. Protestants and Catholics fought a 30-year sectarian civil war in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles.
Here are the “inescapable facts,” said May. “The fact that Northern Ireland shares a land border with another sovereign state. The fact that the hard-won peace that has been built in Northern Ireland over the last two decades has been built around a seamless border. And the fact that Brexit will create a wholly new situation: on 30 March the Northern Ireland/Ireland border will for the first time become the external frontier of the European Union’s single market and customs union.”
The inflexibility on the European side is in part the result of a highly successful campaign by Dublin to paint any border with Northern Ireland as a red line. Irish leaders are unwilling to countenance such a change — and the other 26 E.U. leaders are unwilling to side with a departing member of the bloc over Ireland, which is going nowhere.
Diplomats involved in the negotiations acknowledge that both sides’ inflexibility may lead to a chaotic no-deal Brexit, with pain on either side of the English Channel — but they say that giving in to British demands would also damage Europe’s economy.
May’s Brexit deal has been roundly criticized for tying Britain to E.U. rules and regulations for years to come. Hardcore Brexiteers say it turns Britain into a “vassal state” and “rule taker versus a rule maker,” forever tied to Brussels but with little say.
May has stressed that her deal does allow Britain to control its own immigration levels, which was a driving force in the Brexit vote in June 2016. But the compromise approach taken by May could limit Britain’s ability to make ambitious free-trade deals outside the continental bloc, as President Trump recently asserted.
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