May set for historic defeat in Brexit vote – British Newspapers verdict

The British newspapers verdict is clear. Theresa May is set to loose Tuesday’s vote.

If one looks at the numbers so far, one can see that the number of MPs who have indicated they will support the deal is 32, while the number of lawmakers who have indicated they will oppose the deal is 93. This number includes 27 of May’s Conservative lawmakers.

There are a total of 650 lawmakers in parliament. Of those, around 100 are government ministers and Conservative Party enforcers, or whips, who are required to support the deal and so are not included in the tally.

May’s Conservative Party has 317 lawmakers. It governs with a working majority of 13 thanks to a deal with the 10 lawmakers of the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party.

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Theresa May urged MPs to take “a second look” at the Brexit deal she negotiated with the EU, suggesting a referendum on a united Ireland would become more likely if they rejected it.

Speaking in the House of Commons, the U.K. prime minister said that a no-deal Brexit would “strengthen the hand” of those who wanted a  “border poll” in Northern Ireland, as well as those calling for Scottish independence. She called no-deal “the real threat to our union.”

But to reverse Brexit altogether, May added, would be “a subversion of our democracy.”

The prime minister’s deal is widely expected to be voted down by MPs on Tuesday evening, despite May’s attempts to portray the alternatives as “no deal or no Brexit.”

Her attempt to win new assurances from the EU on the backstop proposal for avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, with an exchange of letters between herself and EU presidents Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, appeared to have failed. Both Conservative Brexiteers and the Democratic Unionist Party, which supports May’s government, said the measures did not go far enough.

May did not go into detail about how a border poll in Northern Ireland might come about as a result of no-deal Brexit, but her decision to raise it appears to be aimed at winning support from DUP politicians who would be vehemently opposed to a united Ireland.

Under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the U.K.’s Northern Ireland secretary can decide to hold a vote on reunification “if at any time it appears likely” to him or her that a majority of voters in Northern Ireland would be in favor.

With weeks of parliamentary disputes likely to follow a vote against May’s deal, the prime minister refused to rule out an extension to the Article 50 negotiating period when pressed by Conservative Brexiteer Bill Cash. May could only say it was the government’s “intent” to leave the EU on the scheduled date of March 29.