Theresa May loses yet another Brexit vote

NO PRIME MINISTER likes being defeated in Parliament. Yet Theresa May must at least be getting used to it. On February 14th she lost a House of Commons vote for the 11th time in her brief premiership. Admittedly, the motion was procedural. But her failure to win a majority suggests that her control over Parliament is growing ever weaker. And that casts doubts on her ability to push through any Brexit deal before Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29th.

At first blush it seems odd that MPs were so exercised over a motion that merely welcomed Mrs May’s intention to follow their demands to renegotiate her Brexit deal, after they had rejected that deal by a 230-vote margin a month ago. The problem was that hardline Brexiteers detected a trap within the bland motion to approve of amendments passed by the Commons on January 29th. One of those amendments was to demand changes to the Irish “backstop”, an insurance policy to avoid a hard border in Ireland by keeping Britain in a customs union with the EU. But another was a declaration that MPs did not want to leave with no deal at all. Many Brexiteers positively favour a no-deal Brexit; others want the option kept as a bargaining tool.