British PM Theresa May says MPs will vote on Brexit on January 14

Things just keep getting worse for Theresa May, who is accused of leading the UK into a “national crisis”. Now she’s facing total humiliation.

British MPs will vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal in four weeks’ time, the Prime Minister announced on Monday.

The Commons vote on the withdrawal agreement will take place in the week beginning January 14, The Sun reports.

The PM is attempting to halt a growing rebellion in her party and Cabinet over what to do about the Brexit stalemate — and hold off Labour who are trying to boot her out of office.

Just minutes before the PM is due to address MPs on a disastrous Brussels summit last week, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn announced he would bring a vote of no confidence in her.

Mr Corbyn said Ms May was “cynically running down the clock” until the UK left the EU by offering lawmakers “her deal or no deal.”

He said Ms May had been the architect of leading the UK into a “national crisis.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May holds a press conference at the European Council during the two day EU summit on December 14, 2018 in Brussels, Belgium. Picture: Getty Images

But crucially it won’t be in the entire government, meaning it can’t cause a snap general election if she loses.

Labour sources said it was a key test for how she would perform in a real vote of no confidence.

He is set to say later: “And so Mr Speaker, if the Prime Minister does not announce the date for the final vote immediately and with the vote taken promptly, I will table a motion … that this House has no confidence in the Prime Minister due to her failure to allow the House of Commons to have a meaningful vote straight away.”

It is thought Mrs May will survive a vote of no confidence because her allies the DUP have vowed to back her in one.

But this afternoon a DUP source said: “We are not committed ourselves either way. We will see what the situation is closer to the time.”

Anti-Brexit campaigners wave Union and EU flags outside the Houses of Parliament in central London on December 17, 2018. Picture: AFP

The news comes as the chaos in Westminster continues.

Eight ministers said she should put Brexit back in the hands of MPs, but others demanded No Deal preparations step up as soon as possible.

A Cabinet ally of the PM, Geoffrey Cox, is said to have told colleagues Mrs May would be gone by April.

Brexiteer Penny Mordaunt was reported to have been holding talks with key backbench plotters as part of a suspected leadership bid.

HUMILIATION

Ms May last week delayed a vote on the UK’s Brexit deal after she admitted it was set to lose.

She then embarked on a series of meetings with EU leaders in an attempt to save the faltering deal, but was sent away empty-handed.

She reportedly gave a “lacklustre presentation” and EU leaders rejected the demands.

That has all but killed any hope of a parliamentary breakthrough in London and instead stepped up plans for a no-deal Brexit, CNN reported.

That would be a humiliating defeat for the PM who has faced a series of setbacks.

In a statement to the Commons, Ms May said MPs would restart the debate - stopped last week - in the week of January 7, the BBC reported.

“It is now only just over 14 weeks until the UK leaves the EU and I know many members of this House are concerned that we need to take a decision soon,” Ms May told MPs.

She claims to have won fresh guarantees at last week’s EU summit over measures to avoid a hard border in Ireland.

An EU spokesman told the BBC it had provided the “clarifications” requested on the contentious issue of the Northern Ireland border backstop and “no further meetings were foreseen”.

SECOND REFERENDUM

Ex-PM Tony Blair relaunched an attack on the Government, saying a new referendum was the only way out of the deadlock.

Meanwhile later today Mrs May will plead with MPs not to force another Brexit referendum, saying it would “leave us no further forward than the last”.

And it would “further divide our country at the very moment we should be working to unite it,” the PM will say.

Mrs May’s top team are split down the middle between preparing full steam ahead for No Deal, or letting MPs decide what to do next with a series of votes in the Commons.

Today DWP boss Amber Rudd said “nothing should be off the table”.

Theresa May makes a statement to the House of Commons in London on December 17, 2018, following her attendance at an EU Summit last week. Picture: AFP

She told Sky News that “After [the vote on the deal] we need to find out where the will of parliament is, where the majority of MPs will vote in parliament.”

And Business Secretary Greg Clark agreed with her, telling the BBC this morning: “If it were not to be successful, parliament should be invited to say what it would agree with.”

The PM has little hope of getting her deal through the Commons after she failed to win any concrete help from the EU last week to push it over the line.

Dozens of MPs are still opposed to her agreement and are set to vote it down whenever it is brought back to the Commons.

Meanwhile Boris Johnson has warned that another vote will create “instant, deep and ineradicable feelings of betrayal”.

In a Telegraph column he suggested that ministers were “out of their minds” for considering another “sickening” vote.

“They would know immediately that they were being asked to vote again simply because they had failed to give the ‘right’ answer last time.

“They would suspect, with good grounds, that it was all a gigantic plot, engineered by politicians, to overturn their verdict.”

This article originally appeared on The Sun and has been republished with permission.