Suggestions that Theresa May could be planning a third vote on her Brexit deal have been quashed after Andrea Leadsom appeared to make the proposal in the Commons earlier today.
According to Faisal Islam attempts to get the so-called “MV3” back for a vote failed earlier after David Lidington and Geoffrey Cox went to see the speaker this morning.
May has said she would quit as PM if Tory rebels and the DUP backed her deal.
My understanding is that Lidington and Cox went into see Speaker at 830 this morning to try to sort it out. Doesn’t seem like it was enough for an MV3.
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) March 28, 2019
Earlier today Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the Commons, told the House in her opening statement:
“Subject to the House approving the motion on the order paper in the name of the prime minister this evening the business for tomorrow will be Friday March 29 – debate on a motion relating to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU …
“Should the house agree the motion in the name of the prime minister later today it is intended that the hours will be the same as for a normal sitting Friday, with the House sitting at 9.30am and the moment of interruption at 2.30pm.”
But it seems unlikely the DUP will support the PM in her third attempt, Jim Wells, a former DUP deputy speaker of the Northern Ireland assembly told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, “You will not find a single public representative in the province who can countenance leaving under the terms of the backstop – and that hasn’t changed since 7 December 2017.”
Wells continued: “We would damage irrevocably our trading relationship with our biggest market, which is the rest of the UK, and we are sitting in a waiting room for constitutional change. And we simply can’t accept that.
“I can’t see any set of circumstances where the DUP would sign up to any agreement which would leave us in this waiting room for change – we just can’t do it.”
I assume this is a backstop (geddit?) – ie provision just in case @theresa_may thinks she can win meaningful vote on 3rd try. But that looks impossible right now. And the idea that having a vote just on Withdrawal Agreement would make it better for her (an idea doing rounds)… https://t.co/P0cyJ9XOIW
— Robert Peston (@Peston) March 28, 2019
NEW: The DUP are telling me they ARE NOT engaged in further talks with the government today.
— Laura Hughes (@Laura_K_Hughes) March 28, 2019
The business for next week will be: (1/2) pic.twitter.com/jxdKMbfQBU
— Leader’s Office (@CommonsLeader) March 28, 2019