May's Brexit test shifts to January, seeks EUs assurance

A critical parliamentary vote on Brexit, which had been postponed this week, will now take place in January, according to the parliamentary schedule released on Thursday, a day after Prime Minister Theresa May survived an attempted coup by her MPs to topple her.

The confirmation came as May reached Brussels to seek further assurances from European Union (EU) leaders on the controversy-hit Brexit deal.

May who won a vote of confidence in her leadership after her party MPs voted 200 to 117 in her favour on Wednesday night, will be seeking legally binding pledges from the EU leaders at the European Council summit in Brussels on the controversial Irish "backstop" clause – the plan to avoid a return to a manned border post-Brexit between UK territory Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.

Meanwhile, it became clear that the Withdrawal Agreement, which has divided all sides of the House of Commons, will only come up for a parliamentary vote in January after Commons leader Andrea Leadsom released next week's parliamentary business on Thursday.

As the vote is not listed for next week and the UK Parliament goes into its Christmas recess after that, the Commons vote can only take place next month now when MPs return from their holiday.

This will give May some breathing space to try and table a further bolstered version of the deal, though EU leaders have made it clear that there can be no re-drafting of the agreement.

Speaking outside Downing Street minutes after the result of the confidence vote was announced, May vowed to deliver the Brexit "people voted for" but said she had heard the concerns of MPs who voted against her and will be seeking further assurances from the EU.

At Thursday's summit, May will have an opportunity to spell out face-to-face the problems to leaders of the other 27 member states. The EU leaders will then consider her representations, without May herself being present in the room.

While the British prime minister has emerged victorious after a failed coup by the Brexit wing of her party, her position has been considerably weakened. She has the comfort of knowing that under Conservative Party rules she cannot be made to face a similar leadership challenge until at least another 12 months, but she faces an uphill task of getting a Brexit bill through the Commons where many of her own MPs are waiting to vote against her.

In an attempt to hang on to her post, she has also announced a major concession – that she would not be leading the Tories into the General Election, scheduled for 2022. This is likely to kick-start plotting and planning by all potential leadership candidates within the party, keen to succeed her at the helm.

"We are still back with the problem that the government has a proposal that we can't get through Parliament and we have got to try and break that gridlock," said Vince Cable, the leader of the Liberal Democrats – which is firmly opposed to Brexit.

He called on Opposition Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to "come off the fence" and back another public vote on Brexit, a so-called People’s Vote, to give the British public another say on the issue with much has changed since the vote in favour of Brexit in the June 2016 referendum.

The Labour Party has threatened that it will table a no-confidence motion in Theresa May's government in the Commons, but only when they felt they had a chance of winning it and forcing a General Election. However, the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which props up the Theresa May led Conservative government, has ruled out support for such a motion at this stage.

Having won the confidence vote with a majority of 83 – 63 per cent of Conservative MPs backing her and 37 per cent voting against her – Theresa May has urged all sides of the House to come together for a Brexit “that brings the country back together, rather than entrenching division”.

"That must start here in Westminster with politicians on all sides coming together and acting in the national interest," she said.

But the no-confidence vote in her leadership has exposed the deep divisions within her own Conservative Party over the issue of Brexit. Britain is scheduled to leave the EU on Brexit Day – March 29, 2019 – and the clock is ticking on making that exit as orderly as possible by having an agreement cleared by the UK Parliament in place. But the prospect of a chaotic no-deal exit continues to loom with just weeks to go before the deadline.

(With inputs from agencies.)