Twenty-one Tory rebels unite to defy Boris Johnson on Brexit

MPs delivered a blow to the PM’s Brexit strategy with a vote aimed at delaying Britain’s EU exit.

It means running up the white flag’: Boris Johnson at the dispatch box in the House of Commons. Picture: AFP

MPs have delivered a blow to Boris Johnson’s Brexit strategy with a vote aimed at delaying the country’s exit from the EU, prompting the British Prime Minister to call for a general election.

In a vote in the House of Commons, MPs defied Mr Johnson’s pleas not to tie his hands in negotiations with the EU and took the first move towards passing a law that would stop him from pushing through a no-deal Brexit on ­October 31.

The development emphasised how Brexit has placed almost unbearable strains on the British ­political system and divided parlia­ment and the country alike.

More than three years after the referendum vote to leave the EU, there is still no obvious way out of the stalemate.

Mr Johnson said in the Commons overnight that he wanted an early general election on October 15 if MPs were to vote against him again and force him to seek a three-month Brexit extension from Brussels with a new law.

“I will never allow that,” Mr Johnson told the house, calling the draft law a “surrender bill”.

Mr Johnson argues that his threat to take Britain out of the EU with or without a divorce deal on October 31 will eventually force the bloc’s 27 other leaders to agree to better terms.

His critics counter that he is playing with fire because of the economic damage such a break-up could cause after almost half a ­century of close ties with Britain’s closest neighbours.

The European Commission also late on Wednesday (AEST) said the risk of a no-deal Brexit had increased, warning that it saw no alternative to the current withdrawal deal.

MPs voted 328 to 301 to make time this week for parliament to ­debate a law — now highly likely to pass — that would require Mr Johnson to ask the EU for Brexit to be delayed until the end of January if he fails to secure a deal by the end of October to manage Britain’s exit.

The Prime Minister has said such parliamentary action would limit his ability to negotiate with the EU, as he could no longer use the threat of a disruptive break with the bloc to squeeze out better divorce terms.

“Everyone will know that if I am Prime Minister, I will go to Brussels, I will go for a deal and get a deal but if they won’t do a deal, we will leave anyway on October 31,” Mr Johnson said after the vote.

“The people of this country will have to choose.”

Mr Johnson said he would put an election call to MPs on Thursday. Two-thirds of MPs would have to vote to approve an election for one to take place. The election call seemed unlikely to succeed after Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party — as well as the heads of the centrist Liberal Democrats and of the Scottish Nat­ional Party — said they wouldn’t back an election until a no-deal exit on October 31 was ruled out.

Nick Brown, Labour’s chief whip, vowed that his party would not allow itself to “fall into an ­elephant trap” that could make a no-deal Brexit more likely.

Mr Brown is understood to have told one of the most united meetings of the parliamentary ­Labour Party in months that they wanted the Prime Minister to “stew in his own juices”.

The vote to proceed towards the delay came amid a day of high drama in the House of Commons. Several high-profile former ministers, including former chancellor of the exchequer Philip Hammond, were among 21 Conser­vative MPs who rebelled against the government, an act Mr Johnson’s aides said would result in their being barred from running as Conservatives at the next election and triggering a near un­prece­dented cull of MPs from the party. Expelling the 21 would pile more pressure on Mr Johnson, whose government on Tuesday lost its majority after a Conservative MP defected to the Liberal Democrats just as Mr Johnson stood in the chamber to make a speech.

Former attorney-general ­Dominic Grieve warned that government threats to withdraw the whip from rebels would not work. He told House of Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg: “If he thinks that the device of withdrawing the whip this evening is going to change my mind or that of my honourable and right honourable friends, he has got another think coming because it will be treated with the contempt it deserves.”

A Scottish court overnight said Mr Johnson’s planned suspension of parliament was lawful. It is the first of several challenges to Mr Johnson’s manoeuvre that gives legislators little time to prevent Britain from crashing out of the EU without an agreement.

The Wall Street Journal, The Times, AFP