蜜桃交友

By Susy Hodges

Prime Minister May faces a day of reckoning with another crunch vote in parliament on her EU withdrawal or Brexit deal.

The last time her Brexit deal was put to the vote in January, lawmakers rejected it by a massive 230 vote margin in the biggest ever defeat for a sitting government in parliament.
May has urged lawmakers to accept her revised deal, saying she had secured last-minute legal changes during her talks with EU leaders in Strasbourg aimed at addressing concern over the contentious Irish backstop provision in her Brexit deal. This is the insurance policy designed to avoid a hard border in Ireland whatever happens and it鈥檚 deeply unpopular with pro-Brexit lawmakers and with the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist party which props up May鈥檚 minority government.

But just hours away from the vote, May鈥檚 chances of winning it were dealt a massive blow when the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox said the Prime Minister鈥檚 revised deal had not changed the legal risk of Britain being trapped indefinitely in the Irish backstop if intractable differences arose. He told parliament the Prime Minister鈥檚 last-minute amendments to her deal had reduced that risk but warned it could still happen.

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Cox鈥檚 legal advice was seen as crucial to winning over the Brexiteers in the ruling conservative party. Earlier the opposition Labour Party said the Prime Minister had secured nothing new during her talks in Strasbourg and said they would vote against her revised deal.

If lawmakers once again reject May鈥檚 deal, she has promised them a vote on Wednesday on whether to leave without a deal. If they reject that, then there will a vote on Thursday on whether to ask for a limited delay to Brexit.

All this comes just over two weeks before Britain is due to leave the EU and there is a widespread view that lawmakers will vote to reject her deal despite these 11-hour amendments. As one British newspaper put it, this vote represents May鈥檚 last roll of the dice. The outcome of it will not just help determine the future shape of Britain鈥檚 relationship with the EU but could also -- in the view of some -- determine the future of May鈥檚 own leadership.