THERESA May was compared to Donald Trump yesterday, as her beleaguered, powerless and out-of-control government went to war with parliament.
The Prime Minister was in a combative mode as she addressed MPs in the Commons yesterday, but her time in Downing Street looks as if it’s coming to an end.
It’s still not entirely clear what exactly is going to happen with Brexit this week.
The Tory leader, who held meetings with Brexiteers on Sunday and spoke to the leader of the DUP and Labour yesterday, admitted she was not yet able to win the third Meaningful Vote on her deal, or
MV3 as it’s known,
“I have had to conclude that as things stand, there is still not sufficient support in the house to bring back the deal for a third meaningful vote,” she told MPs.
“That prompted speculation that she could be set to stand down as Prime Minister if it encouraged enough MPs to get behind her deal.
Confusingly, May’s de-facto deputy Prime Minister, David Lidington, later hinted that MV3 could come
to the Commons on Thursday.
Significantly, she did make one significant concession yesterday, telling MPs that there would be no No Deal Brexit unless they voted for it – the closest she has come to ruling it out.
May also criticised a Norway-style deal, which has growing popularity among some MPs.
This, she said, would be a “slow Brexit” as it “extends article 50 beyond 22 May, forces the British people to take part in European elections and gives up control of any of our borders, laws, money or trade, is not a Brexit that will bring the British people together.”
Responding to May’s update, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the Government’s approach to Brexit had become a “national embarrassment.”
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said voters are “ashamed” of the UK Parliament, UK Government and the “embarrassment that British politics has become”.
“Her ill judged speech before she departed for Brussels concluded that everyone’s to blame but herself.
“Trying to put herself on the side of the people and blaming parliamentarians. It was Trumpesque. We don’t need such raw populism at a time like this.”
He added that it would be a travesty if the indicative votes on Brexit didn’t influence the government: “If this Prime Minister is telling the people of Scotland that our votes don’t count when we voted to Remain, we know what the answer is - and the day is coming that the people of Scotland will vote for independence and we will be an independent country in the European Union.”
As May referred to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Blackford shouted “give it a rest”.
The Prime Minister went on: “He stands up here proclaiming the benefits of democracy and yet tells me to ‘give it a rest’ when I point out that the people of Scotland voted to remain part of the United Kingdom.”
May said votes in the Commons do count, adding: “But so do the votes of 17.4 million people who voted to leave the European Union.”
The DUP’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds criticised the “fundamental lack of preparation”, adding the “Government’s entirely responsible for that”.
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