LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May told fellow Conservative Party lawmakers on Wednesday that she was prepared to resign before the next round of Brexit negotiations with the European Union, offering up her leadership post in an effort to persuade hard-liners to support her unpopular plan to exit the bloc.

May’s offer to curtail her political career to save her vision for Brexit was a desperate gambit. Whether it will be enough to pass her withdrawal plan was not clear.

What was obvious was that Parliament still does not know its own mind on Brexit.

In a special late-night session of “indicative votes,” an effort to find new ways to break the impasse, the House of Commons could not produce a majority for any of eight Brexit proposals put forth by members.

The closest vote was for a “soft” Brexit based on a new customs union with the E.U. It lost by eight. A call to stage a second Brexit referendum was defeated by 27 votes.

On a day when Parliament thought it would take control of Brexit, May and her deal still dominated.

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay told the House that members’ go-nowhere voting demonstrated that “there are no easy options here. There is no simple way forward.”

Barclay said the best deal on offer was still the one May negotiated, and he urged the House to reconsider it. “If we do not do that, then there are no guarantees about where this process will end,” he warned.

Approving a withdrawal deal is necessary before Britain and the E.U. can negotiate their future relationship.

May offered no timetable for her possible departure. Some Tory lawmakers said a leadership election within the party could happen over the summer, with May leaving 10 Downing Street by the autumn. Other reports suggested a new leader could be in place by July. Swapping prime ministers within the party would not require a general election.

May’s announcement was made behind closed doors, at a meeting of Tory backbenchers — rank-and-file Conservative Party members — at the Palace of Westminster. There were no reporters in the room.

“I have heard very clearly the mood of the parliamentary party. I know there is a desire for a new approach, and new leadership, in the second phase of the Brexit negotiations, and I won’t stand in the way of that,” May told the lawmakers, according to excerpts released by Downing Street.

“I am prepared to leave this job earlier than I intended in order to do what is right for our country and our party,” she said.

While May’s offer to step aside encouraged a number of Conservative rebels to say they now will support her twice-defeated Brexit deal, she still may not have enough votes for the deal to pass this divided Parliament.

Crashing out of the European Union without a deal as well as a long delay, a general election or a second referendum all remain options as the chaos of Brexit continues.

The prime minister’s surprise announcement was seen as key to getting dozens of hardcore Brexiteers, including Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, to back her Brexit play.

Johnson, May’s former foreign secretary, suggested to colleagues that he will now support May’s Brexit deal, this after months of condemning it as a treaty that would make Britain “a vassal” to Brussels.

Rees-Mogg, a Conservative House member who is a power broker in these negotiations, said he would back May’s deal as long as Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists did. He tweeted that “half a loaf is better than no bread.” He fears losing Brexit entirely.

But on Wednesday night, the Democratic Unionist Party said it still could not back May’s Brexit plan, citing a too-great risk that Northern Ireland would be trapped by the arrangements made over how to keep the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland open.

Without the DUP, May’s deal faces tough odds.

It was unclear whether May’s promise to resign would be honored if lawmakers do not approve her exit deal.

Critics were quick to note the vagueness of her vow to step down.

“If I were them, I’d want it in blood,” Margaret Beckett, a Labour Party politician, told the BBC. “I’ve lost track of how many times she’s promised she won’t lead them into the next election and suddenly it’s turned out that she might after all.”

May was also criticized as focusing on her party and its fractious naysayers.

“Theresa May’s pledge to Tory MPs to stand down if they vote for her deal shows once and for all that her chaotic Brexit negotiations have been about party management, not principles or the public interest,” tweeted opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. “A change of government can’t be a Tory stitch-up, the people must decide.”

The Conservative Party has a long history of leaders being felled by issues concerning Europe. David Cameron, Margaret Thatcher and John Major were all toppled in part because of issues relating to Britain’s relationship with the continent.

But many lawmakers — of all parties — think May has made a shambles of the exit process.

Her right-wing critics say May’s Brexit plan could leave Britain too closely tied to European rules and regulations, failing the test of “taking back control” from Brussels. Those who want a softer Brexit say May set down too many red lines during negotiations.

May says the withdrawal agreement, negotiated with her European counterparts over the past two years, is the best possible option and honors the results of the June 2016 Brexit referendum, in which voters opted to leave the E.U. by 52 percent to 48 percent.

With the news that May could be stepping down, the British chattering class quickly pivoted to speculation over who might replace her.

[Meet the five men who could replace Theresa May as British prime minister]

The top contenders, at least on Wednesday, included Johnson and the government ministers Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt, ­David Lidington and Sajid Javid.

Before May’s announcement, the votes in the House of Commons had been expected to be the main event of the day. Speaker John Bercow opened the debate on different flavors of Brexit by saying he hoped it would “give the House a chance to start the process of positively indicating what it wants.”

The House’s answer was a mush.

There was neither a clear majority for a “soft” or “hard” exit from the E.U.

The Labour Party’s plan for an “alternative” Brexit also failed.

At the end of the day, the House managed only to continue to convey what it does not want, which includes Britain’s leaving the continental trading bloc without a deal.

The votes were nonbinding. Another round of such “indicative” voting could occur next week.

After the results were announced, Oliver Letwin, the Conservative member of Parliament who helped pave the way for the indicative votes, said he had not expected any option to garner a majority, and he said Parliament should hold another round of votes Monday.

Some lawmakers in the chamber jeered at him and could be heard saying “that’s ridiculous” and “crazy.”

On the other side of the English Channel, the Europeans wait and wait. Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, told legislators Wednesday in Brussels that the E.U. should be open to a long extension if Britain wanted to “rethink” its strategy.

“You cannot betray the 6 million people who signed a petition to revoke Article 50 — the 1 million people who marched for a people’s vote or the increasing majority of people who want to remain in the European Union,” Tusk said.

The general division in the British Parliament gave no clear indication to the Europeans what London might favor. Still, European leaders who gathered last week to give Britain a brief respite from its initial Brexit departure date also said they could extend the clock even further — if only the Britons would hold late-May elections for the European Parliament.

Thus far, Prime Minister May has refused.

E.U. leaders also would embrace a British move to stay in the European Customs Union. Although that possibility was among the proposals rejected Wednesday, it was still one of the more popular choices. Some negotiators have said that arrangements for Britain to stay in the customs union could be made within hours — not days or weeks — and that doing so would ensure that the Irish border remains open. But Britain would be stuck without an independent trade policy, a disappointment to ardent Brexiteers.

Michael Birnbaum and Quentin Ariès in Brussels contributed to this report.

Read more:

Brits pretend they’re sick of Brexit. But truth is they’re obsessed.

Britain will not leave on March 29 after E.U. allows a short Brexit reprieve

What is Brexit? Britain’s political drama, explained.

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/brexit-votes/2019/03/27/d044bb28-4fcc-11e9-bdb7-44f948cc0605_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.902d610b806f

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Theresa May will come under intense pressure to secure a future trade deal with the United States as she sits down with Donald Trump just hours after he warned that her soft Brexit blueprint would “kill” Britain’s chances.

In an extraordinary interview that threatened to undermine her new Brexitstrategy, painfully thrashed out with her cabinet last week, Trump questioned whether her plans upheld the referendum result and accused her of ignoring his advice.

Against a backdrop of furious protests across the country, the US president openly humiliated May by suggesting that former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who quit in opposition to her Brexit plans this week, would make a great prime minister.

His intervention sabotages her attempts to placate Tory leavers, who are furious following the long-awaited release of her Brexit white paper on Thursday, by winning US support for her proposals.

On Thursday evening, as May told a dinner held in Trump’s honour at Blenheim Palace that her policy would create an “unprecedented opportunity” for a free trade agreement, his damaging statements were revealed.

She now faces the challenge on Friday of persuading him that her strategy would “tear down” the bureaucratic barriers that Brussels had put in the path of business as she attempts to overcome US fears about the future trading relationship.

Asked about Trump’s incendiary interview, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders insisted the president “likes and respects Prime Minister May very much”.

“As he said in his interview with the Sun she ‘is a very good person’ and he ‘never said anything bad about her’. He thought she was great on Nato today and is a really terrific person,” she added.

In the interview, which ignores all usual diplomatic conventions, Trump warned that her soft Brexit approach would scupper any hopes of a free trade agreement, a cherished prize of many Brexiters.

“If they do a deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Unioninstead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal. If they do that, then their trade deal with the US will probably not be made,” he said.

“We have enough difficulty with the European Union. We are cracking down right now on the European Union because they have not treated the United States fairly on trading.”

Trump accused the prime minister of ignoring his advice on Brexit negotiations. “I would have done it much differently. I actually told Theresa May how to do it, but she didn’t agree, she didn’t listen to me. She wanted to go a different route,” he said.

He cast doubt on whether the prime minister was delivering the Brexit that the British people had voted for in 2016. “The deal she is striking is a much ­different deal than the one the people voted on. It was not the deal that was in the referendum. I have just been hearing this over the last three days. I know they have had a lot of resignations. So a lot of people don’t like it.”

Earlier, Trump, speaking at the Nato summit in Brussels, had appeared to throw his weight behind a hard Brexit by suggesting the government was taking “a different route” from the complete break from the EU that he said the British people had voted for.

But May insisted: “We have come to an agreement at the proposal we’re putting to the European Union which absolutely delivers on the Brexit people voted for. They voted for us to take back control of our money, our law and our borders and that’s exactly what we will do.”

May and Trump holding hands at Blenheim Palace. Photograph: Hannah Mckay/Reuters

However, he undermined her still further in his Sun interview by describing Johnson as “a very talented guy”, adding: “I am not pitting one against the other. I am just saying I think he would be a great prime minister. I think he’s got what it takes.”

The US president also attacked Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, with whom he has had a long-running dispute, suggesting he was a “terrible mayor” who had “done a very bad job on terrorism” by allowing so many migrants to come to the city. He said that he felt unwelcome in London after hearing of the “Trump baby” blimp.

The unpopularity of Trump’s visit was already apparent by Thursday night, with protests starting as soon as he landed at Stansted in Air Force One at 1.51pm. Shortly after he was met at the airport by the international trade secretary, Liam Fox, and by the US ambassador Woody Johnson, banners were unfurled opposite the US embassy questioning his human rights record. Protesters later gathered to create a “wall of noise” outside the ambassador’s residence, where he was due to stay.

Trump will largely avoid the capital and other cities that could host significant protests. He will instead be kept mainly insulated from the public at various country estates or palaces and will travel largely by air.

Nonetheless, protesters will seek to gain his attention, with the blimp to be flown over Westminster on Friday morning before an estimated 70,000 people take to the streets. There will be rallies in Glasgow and Manchester as well as a women’s march in London and the main Stop Trump protest, which will end in Trafalgar Square.

Protesters hold anti-Donald Trump signs during a protest in Queen Street, Cardiff. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

On Thursday night, Trump and his wife, Melania, attended a black-tie dinner at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, the birthplace of Winston Churchill, with business leaders as well as most senior members of the cabinet.

It is understood that he will join May on Friday for a counter-terrorism demonstration by UK and US special forces at Sandhurst, before the main business element of his trip: talks with the prime minister and the new foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, at the PM’s Chequers country retreat.

Downing Street said that as well as trade and Brexit, the talks would cover Russia and the Middle East.

Later on Friday Trump and his wife – who will spend some of her time on separate engagements with May’s husband, Philip – will have tea with the Queen at Windsor Castle before flying to Scotland, where they are expected to visit Trump’s golf resorts in Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire and stay at the 120-room hotel at Turnberry.

While at the Nato summit, Trump said he had been reading up closely on Brexit in recent days, and he described the UK as “a pretty hot spot with many resignations”. He had already described the UK as a country in turmoil.

He insisted he was popular in the UK, citing his strong line on migration. “They like me a lot in the UK. I think they agree with me on immigration.”

A Guardian/ICM poll released on Wednesday showed 53% of respondents disagreed with the idea Trump was doing a good job, and 63% disagreed with the statement that they would like to see a politician like him as British prime minister.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/12/may-bids-for-trump-brexit-backing-with-vow-to-rip-up-red-tape

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