Immediately after suffering a crushing defeat in the House of Commons for her Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union, British Prime Minister Theresa May spent a considerable amount of her time in cross-party talks that failed to yield considerable policy concessions.
The one significant piece of news to come out of the talks was that a parliamentary debate on her new proposal will not take place before January 29 as had been expected.
Despite pressure from the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, May will not promise to take off the table the option of leaving the EU without. Her office also confirmed that she will not ask European leaders to delay Britain’s official departure beyond the March date, as demanded by the Scottish National Party and Green Party.
Corbyn has largely scoffed at May’s cross-party talks, dismissing them as a political stunt while at the same time threatening to resubmit motions of no-confidence to try to topple the Tory government after he publicly excoriated May by saying, “Stop wasting billions of our money preparing for a no-deal Brexit.”
But while the leader of the opposition will not talk to the prime minister, a number of Labour backbenchers will. However, the number of Labour parliamentary MPs considered uncompromising in their Brexit stance is not enough to give May a working majority in the House of Commons.
Nonetheless, May will not move from positions that would undermine the stability of her government. May’s reliance on the parliamentary support of the Democratic Unionist Party, the hardline Protestant party from Northern Ireland and one of the staunchest proponents of Brexit, means the prime minister needs to provide further assurances on the issue of the Irish border.
May is also not excluding the possibility of calling for a second referendum if the parliamentary debates reach a dead end on January 29, a mere two months before the deadline. It remains unclear, however, if a second referendum is technically possible. By law, a new vote would need at least 10 weeks to campaign, not to mention the consent of the remaining 27 European Union members.