2LT International News

LONDON UK – The British parliament is in chaos over the Brexit debacle which continued on Monday with the failure of four more votes in the House of Commons.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has worked tirelessly to get concensus among parliamentarians, but thus far it has all been in vain.

There are now only eleven days to go unless the UK can agree on a new plan or be left to stumble out of the EU without a deal, and be left scrambling to do deals with individual countries.

The four votes on Monday night were non-binding but could have provided some light on a way out of what has become a quagmire.

May has already lost three humiliating votes and had lawmakers take control of the parliament but there appears to be no way forward.

Eight proposed votes for Monday were submitted to House of Commons Speaker John Bercow who selected 4 for debate.

One provided for continued membership in the EU’s customs union.

Another called for Britain to stay in the EU’s borderless single market for goods and services.

There was solid support for the two proposals, bit some saw them as half-way measures.

A third proposal called for a deal to be put to a public referendum. The difficulty with that is getting lawmakers to agree on the deal.

The fourth option considered on Monday night was to forego Brexit if no deal is reached by 10 April 2019, two days in advance of the exist date.

May signalled she did not support any of the four proposals.

It appears the majority of parliamentarians agreed – as all four proposals failed to pass.

“When you put your deal through three times and colleagues and others have not supported it, but you still want to honor the referendum result itself, you still want to get out of Europe, then something small has to give, Defense Minister Tobias Ellwood said ahead of Monday night’s votes.

With the 12 April deadline looming, and such a huge division among parliamentarians, the likelihood of a deal being struck at the last minute is at long-odds.

There was speculation May could inflict a last throw of the dice, and table a fourth vote as most parties are desperate for a way-out of the mess, which threatens to decimate Britain’s economy and standing in the business world.

The CEO of Siemens UK called on lawmakers to unite on a deal, saying: “Brexit is exhausting our business and wrecking the country’s tremendous reputation as an economic powerhouse.”

Things have become so bad there was a rumour around the parliament on Monday that May would ask the Queen to suspend parliament.  James Slack, May’s spokesman rejected the notion outright.

“We don’t have any intention of involving the queen in this process,” he said.