The European elections in May complicate Brexit even further
is fond of making promises. On no fewer than 108 occasions, the prime minister has pledged that Britain will leave the European Union on March 29th, the deadline for Brexit under the Article 50 process that she triggered two years ago. Yet with just over a week to go, she wrote on March 20th to the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, to ask for more time.
The question is whether anyone now believes promises made by a prime minister whose authority is shot. The Brexit deal that she struck withleaders four months ago has twice been voted down by the House of Commons, by enormous margins. Any control she once had overs, even from her own Tory party, has long gone. Even her own cabinet ministers now seem ready to defy her, whether when voting in the Commons or in leaks to the press.
A big complication is the European elections in late May. Mrs May insisted that it would be quite wrong for Britain to participate in these elections. Some in Brussels think this suggests a May 26th deadline, but British officials reckon an extension to June 30th is possible because the new European Parliament does not meet until July 2nd. Yet an earlier deadline may be April 12th.
That remains a big if. Since Mrs May runs a minority government, winning a majority is hard, especially given her habit of castigatings and even ministers freely defy their party whips, as has repeatedly happened in recent weeks. And it is harder still when parties are split, with internal caucuses like the hardline pro-Brexit European Research Group running their own whipping operation.
This matters because one vote for the Brexit deal is not enough. Parliament would then have to pass a withdrawal agreement bill. Precedents are not encouraging. In 1971 Edward Heath’s Conservative government won the vote to approve entry into the European Economic Community by 112 votes, but its majority at second reading of the subsequent act shrank to just eight.
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