WITH more than 400 MPs expected to vote against Theresa May’s Brexit deal this evening, the Prime Minister is heading for a humiliating defeat.
Ahead of the so-called meaningful vote, here are the five biggest UK Government defeats in the House of Commons.
1. Ramsay MacDonald and the enquiry into the JR Campbell case
The biggest defeat the UK Government has faced came during the tenure of Ramsay MacDonald in 1924.
His minority government suffered a defeat of 166 votes when MPs voted on an amendment put forward by the Liberal Party to set up a select committee to investigate the government’s decision to drop criminal proceedings against the editor of the Communist newspaper Workers Weekly, JR Campbell.
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MP voted by 364 votes to 198, which led to a General Election which Labour lost.
2. Ramsay MacDonald and the Housing Bill
Unfortunately for Mr MacDonald, he occupies the top two spots when it comes to biggest defeats the UK Government has suffered.
This time it was a motion on his party’s Housing Bill which was defeated by 140 votes, also in 1924 – just one more in a series of defeats for the minority government.
No government has suffered a Commons defeat by more than 100 votes since.
3. Jim Callaghan and the Firearms (Variation of Fees) Order
Thankfully for MacDonald he does not appear again in the top five, though another Labour Prime Minister occupies the next three slots.
Jim Callaghan lost by 89 votes when in March 1979 his minority government’s motion to annul the fees for a firearms certificate was tabled.
Just 141 MPs voted, with 115 of those voting down the motion.
4. Jim Callaghan and the Scotland Devolution Bill amendment
The government of Callaghan suffered another embarrassing defeat in January of the previous year when MPs voted by 204 to 118 against an amendment to the Scotland Devolution Bill.
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The amendment would have excluded Shetland and Orkney from the provisions of the Bill if they voted no in a referendum on the issue.
5. Jim Callaghan and the Wales Bill
Completing his hattrick, later on in 1978 Callaghan oversaw a split in his party over the issue of home rule for Wales, despite committed itself to devolution after coming to power in 1974.
Some in the party considered devolution a danger to the Union and a concession to Welsh nationalism.
The Wales Bill was defeated by 72 votes.
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