Berlin, Dec. 11 (IANS): Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday met German Chancellor Angela Merkel here as part of a whistle-stop tour to meet European leaders in an attempt to salvage her Brexit deal, a day after postponing a parliamentary vote on it in the face of overwhelming opposition.
May met fellow conservative politician Merkel in the German capital having travelled from the Hague, where she had a breakfast meeting with her Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte to seek “further assurances” that the Northern Irish backstop would never come into force, though No 10 warned a rapid breakthrough was unlikely.
Head of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk have already said the draft Brexit deal would not be subject to renegotiation but said they were open to give further clarifications on it.
May was due to meet the two top officials later in the day in Brussels.
“We will not renegotiate the deal, including the backstop,” Tusk earlier tweeted, referring to the contested clause in the deal relating to Northern Ireland.
UK Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd said further talks with Brussels would focus on the Brexit “backstop” on the Irish border, which May earlier admitted had caused MPs “widespread and deep concern”.
Conservative Party leader May said on Monday that the decision to delay the vote was made after it became clear she would lose it “by a significant margin”.
According to the Guardian, Downing Street said the vote could be delayed till January, that reduces the time available to pass the necessary legislation to complete the UK’s departure.
A government spokesperson said that May will put her Brexit deal to a vote in the lower house of Parliament before January 21.
Dozens of Conservative MPs had been planning to join forces with the Labour Party, the Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Democratic Unionist Party to vote down May’s deal, reports said.
The Tory rebels and the DUP do not like the Northern Ireland “backstop”, a legally-binding proposal for a customs arrangement with the EU, which would come into force if the two sides cannot agree a future relationship which avoids the return of customs checkpoints on the Irish border.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn urged May to stand down because her government was now in “chaos”.
Scotland first minister pushes Labour to oust May government
Scotland’s first minister and leader of the anti-Brexit and pro-independence Scottish National Party on Tuesday put pressure on the official opposition in the UK to lodge a motion of no confidence against Britain’s embattled conservative Prime Minister Theresa May.
Speaking to the BBC’s flagship Today programme, Nicola Sturgeon said May’s Conservative government was no longer functioning and her decision to delay a parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal last minute due to the likeliness it would have been rejected by lawmakers was an opportune moment for Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to table a confidence motion.
“It’s a government that’s ceased to govern,” Sturgeon said. “It’s not functioning any longer, so it can’t go on and I think it is incumbent now on the official opposition to lodge a motion of no confidence. I signalled yesterday that the SNP would support that,” she was cited as saying by Efe news.
The SNP, which has 35 Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, the lower chamber of UK Parliament, has vociferously called for a second Brexit referendum.
Sturgeon said Corbyn seemed reluctant to back that initiative.
Labour’s senior ministers so far declined to throw their weight behind a people’s vote, instead suggesting the centre-left party could negotiate a better deal with the European Union, although several of its backbenchers were in favour.
“Labour can speak for themselves, but as I understand it, they don’t think the time is right for a motion of confidence,” the leader of Scotland’s devolved government said.
“For goodness sake, if the time is not right now, then when will the time be right? The clock is ticking, time is running out,” she said.
Some 52 per cent of UK voters opted to the leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, but 62 per cent of Scottish voters chose to remain.
The whole of the UK is due to leave the EU on March 29, 2019.
