Portrait of the week | 21 March 2019

Home

Theresa May, the Prime Minister, wrote to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, asking for a delay of the date for Brexit. She had been wondering whether to solicit a third ‘meaningful vote’ before or after going off to the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday. Heaps of money had been put aside to buy off the DUP and unreal talk had been launched about the Vienna Convention providing a way out of the Irish backstop. But now, asked if Britain was in a crisis, a No. 10 spokesman said: ‘That situation has come to pass.’

The tragicomedy of Brexit had taken an unexpected turn after John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, lobbed in a grenade by declaring that ‘What the government cannot legitimately do is resubmit to the House the same proposition — or substantially the same proposition — as that of last week, which was rejected by 149 votes.’ This convention had been established by Mr Speaker Phelips on 2 April 1604, and had attracted desultory discussion last week. Parliamentary politics came to resemble a ship in a storm driven on to rocks. A government motion to rule out leaving the EU on 29 March without a deal had been amended by 312 votes to 308 to apply to any date. This amended motion was opposed by the government, but passed by 321 to 278. Gavin Barwell, the chief of staff to the Prime Minister, was accused of suggesting that it was permissible for ministers to abstain, although he later denied it was that simple. But the cabinet ministers David Gauke, Greg Clark, David Mundell and Amber Rudd chose not to vote with the government. The next day a motion for a series of indicative votes by the Commons was defeated by 314 to 312.