LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May’s government saw off a rebellion by her pro-European MPs on Wednesday after making further concessions over parliament’s role in the final Brexit deal.
MPs in the House of Commons voted to reject a motion that would have strengthened the power of lawmakers to intervene if no deal is reached with Brussels before Brexit in March 2019.
Just hours earlier, Brexit Secretary David Davis issued a statement offering a clarification that the rebels said would ensure parliament would have a “meaningful vote.”
In the end, MPs voted by 319 to 303 reject a rebel amendment to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, which sets the legal framework for Brexit.
The government’s proposal was passed through without a vote.
Winning the vote is a huge relief for the prime minister, who has struggled to maintain her authority over a deeply divided government.
A defeat would also have been a humiliating setback as she heads to a summit next week with fellow EU leaders, although she still faces tough negotiations with Brussels.
May has offered parliament a vote on the final terms of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, but has been engaged in months of negotiations over what happens if it is rejected.
Pro-Europeans are determined that parliament be given the opportunity to intervene to stop Britain crashing out of the bloc, which they say could have catastrophic consequences.
But May had warned that any attempt to tie her hands would undermine her chances of a good deal in the Brexit talks, while euroskeptics accused the rebels of trying to block Britain’s exit.
The government last week agreed to an amendment stating that if there is no deal by January 21 next year, ministers must put a statement to a vote in parliament.
This vote would be on a “neutral motion,” however, meaning it would not be open to any amendments that might force the government into a course of action.
Pro-European rebels in the ruling Conservative party said this rendered the vote meaningless, and warned they would vote against it and instead back their own rebel proposal.
In his last-minute statement, Davis acknowledged that under House of Commons rules, “it will be for the Speaker to determine whether a motion... is or not amendable.”
Leading rebel Conservative Dominic Grieve said this was an “obvious acknowledgement of the sovereignty of this place (parliament),” and confirmed he would back the government.
Another rebel, former minister Nicky Morgan, tweeted: “On this basis parliament’s vote is meaningful — and I will support govt amendment.”
While May won the day, the high-stakes vote is a reminder of how difficult her situation is.
Her Conservative party commands only a slim majority in the 650-seat Commons and relies on the support of Northern Ireland’s 10 Democratic Unionist Party MPs.
In a sign of how close Wednesday’s vote was, heavily pregnant and sick MPs were called in to cast their ballots, including one in a wheelchair.
Further clashes are due in the coming weeks, notably when bills on Britain’s future trading relationship with the EU are debated by MPs.
The main opposition Labour party had backed the rebel amendment on Wednesday but has its own euroskeptic rebels.
British PM survives crucial Brexit vote in parliament
British PM survives crucial Brexit vote in parliament
- Brexit Secretary David Davis issued a statement offering a clarification that the rebels said would ensure parliament would have a ‘meaningful vote’
- Pro-Europeans are determined that parliament be given the opportunity to intervene to stop Britain crashing out of the bloc
Trump takes unconventional approach to communicating to the public about war in Iran
- The communications strategy opened Trump to criticism that he hadn’t done enough to explain the rationale and objectives of the war
Typical of an unconventional presidency, the Trump administration waited more than 48 hours to make any live, public communication to the American people about why it had decided to go to war with Iran.
President Donald Trump discussed why he launched the attack prior to a White House ceremony honoring military heroes on Monday but took no questions from reporters. Earlier in the day, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine briefed journalists at the Pentagon.
The two days previous, Trump delivered two pretaped statements that were released on Truth Social, the social media site owned by the president’s media company, and granted telephone interviews to more than a dozen journalists — several of which produced fragmented responses that, to some, clouded as much as they cleared up.
The communications strategy opened Trump to criticism that he hadn’t done enough to explain the rationale and objectives of the war, even as the American military suffered its first casualties. By contrast, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has teamed with the US against Iran, delivered two statements the day the war began and addressed reporters Monday at the site of a missile attack that killed nine people. The Israeli military has held multiple press briefings each day.
“The American people need a commander in chief, and he has been absent in that role,” Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff under President Barack Obama, said on CNN Monday. Emanuel, a Democrat, is contemplating a run for the presidency in 2028.
An unconventional strategy leads to criticism
Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, wrote on social media that “after Trump launched a new war on Iran, he did not rush back to the White House to make an Oval Office address to rally the nation as other presidents have done. He stayed at Mar-a-Lago to attend a glitzy political fundraiser.”
That post provoked a response from Steven Cheung, White House communications director. “Imagine being a reporter so consumed with Trump Derangement Syndrome that he wants President Trump to mimic the failed policies of the past. The truth is that President Trump spent the majority of his time monitoring the situation in a secure facility, in constant contact with world leaders, and made multiple addresses to the nation that garnered hundreds of millions of views. He also took dozens of calls with reporters.”
The calls included one with Baker’s colleague at The Times, Zolan Kanno-Youngs. Trump’s mobile phone number is known to many of the reporters who cover him, and the president often takes their calls for on-the-spot interviews. Besides The Times, he spoke in the aftermath of the attack to journalists for ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, CNBC, Fox News Channel, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Axios, Politico and an Israeli television station.
Most of the calls were brief and marginally illuminating; Politico’s Dasha Burns said Trump answered but said he was too busy to talk. The public couldn’t hear what Trump said in the interviews and was dependent upon what the journalists chose to report on the conversations.
“I spoke to President Trump today and he told me that the operation in Iran is going to go very fast,” Libby Alon, a reporter for Channel 14 News in Israel, wrote about her interview on X. “It’s doing very well, and (will) make the people of Israel very happy, and the people of the world very happy.”
The Times reported that in its six-minute chat, Trump “offered several seemingly contradictory visions of how power might be transferred to a new government — or even whether the existing Iranian power structure would run that government or be overthrown.”
In one of his two conversations with Trump, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl said when he asked about the death of Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the president said: “I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well I got him first.” CNN’s Jake Tapper went on the air minutes after his conversation Monday, saying Trump told him “the big one is coming soon,” an apparent reference to a future attack.
Asked for comment, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said: “President Trump is the most transparent and accessible president in American history. The American people have never had a more direct and authentic relationship with a president of the United States than they have with President Trump.”
Hegseth briefing concentrates on friendly reporters
Pentagon reporters learned late Sunday about Hegseth’s briefing. Reporters from The Associated Press, Reuters, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and Stars & Stripes were permitted into the briefing room, but Hegseth did not call on them. Instead, he took questions from NewsNation and Trump-friendly outlets like the Daily Caller, Daily Wire, One America News and the Christian Broadcasting Network. Most mainstream news outlets left their regular stations at the Pentagon last fall rather than agree to Hegseth’s rules restricting their work.
Hegseth denounced the “foolishness” of people wanting to know details of the operation in advance, such as whether Americans would commit to more than air power, and said the operation would continue as long as it took to achieve objections. He initially ignored NBC News’ Courtney Kube when she called out a question: “President Trump put a four-week time limit on it. Are you saying he’s wrong?”
Later, Hegseth denounced Kube for asking “the typical NBC sort of gotcha-type question. President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it might take — four weeks, two weeks, six weeks, it could move up, it could move back. We’re going to execute at his command the objectives he set out to achieve.”
Unlike Pentagon briefings in past administrations, reporters were given assigned seats, with the Trump-friendly outlets seated in front. Jennifer Griffin, Hegseth’s former colleague at Fox News Channel who left the Pentagon with other reporters after not accepting his new rules, was seated in the last row.
