Theresa May deepens Britain’s crisis with Brexit vote postponement

The shambles of what are the remnants of a British government with next to no power has deteriorated into high farce.

Theresa May reaches out to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin last night as she seeks ‘assurances’ from European leaders on her Brexit deal.

The shambles of what are the remnants of a British government with next to no power deteriorated into high farce immediately after Prime Minister Theresa May ­deferred the most crucial vote of a generation.

As the British economy slams to a standstill and the pound sterling continues to plunge, the increasingly fraught Brexit chaos has exposed Mrs May and ­Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as being even weaker, and more self-­serving, than the most sceptical observer imagined.

Mrs May admonished the parliament yesterday, when it was her that had crossed red lines, and was avoiding a career-ending ­ignom­inious defeat of her deal.

“Do MPs really want Brexit?’’ she asked to a loud baying of “no’’ from Scottish nationalists and some Labour Remainers.

European leaders also mock Mrs May, but may yet cobble a form of non-binding “assurances’’ for her to take back to Westminster as an addendum to her Brexit deal. Her own backbenchers have warned her that she is time-­wasting amid “a farrago of chaos’’.

European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker last night dampened any hope of an early breakthrough. He said ahead of meeting Mrs May: “There is no room whatsoever for renegotiation, but of course there is room if used intelligently, there is room enough to give further clarifications and further interpretations without opening the withdrawal agreement. This will not happen: everyone has to note that the withdrawal agreement will not be reopened.”

The Office of National Statistics yesterday said in the three months to October, the British economy had slowed to just 0.4 per cent growth, the trading deficit had widened and manufacturing was at zero growth.

Economists have warned of a high risk of a contraction when figures are released next month.

Mrs May has made it clear she is not trying to overhaul the deal and risk the EU reopening discussions on Gibraltar and fishing rights, but to tinker. Even if she ­obtains assurances on the Irish backstop, the blind handing over of £39bn ($68bn) to the EU without any guarantees on a future trading ­relationship and the oversight of the European Court of Justice on some British activities are so anathema to scores of her backbenchers that the deal is unlikely to pass.

There was uproar in the parliament when Mrs May — fresh from her government being the first ever to be in contempt of parliament and having lost three votes last week — then failed to follow convention and put the deferral of the Brexit deal to a vote.

Speaker John Bercow was indignant and said it was deeply discourteous. In a wild scene, Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle grabbed the heavy gold mace, which symbolises the Queen’s presence, and tried to prevent the government from deferring the vote by attempting to remove the mace from the chamber. One Tory backbencher, Mark Francois, said “the government have gone and run away and hidden in the toilets’’, while Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon derided it as an act of pathetic cowardice.

Which raises the big question that the British public has been pondering for some time: why is it that nobody has removed Mrs May? She has lost control of her party, her government and the goodwill of the country, is tin-ear to criticism and humiliation and has now deepened the country’s paralysis and uncertainty.

The Tories are so split they have struggled to get an acceptable challenger and the required 48 ­letters that would spark a leadership challenge. That may change in the next few days.

Mr Corbyn keeps threatening to call a vote of no confidence in the government, and 50 of his MPs have demanded it, but he hasn’t yet done so.

He had the support of the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru openly calling for such a move in Westminster yesterday, yet he was content to remind the nation — as if it hadn’t noticed — “we are in an extremely serious and unprecedented situation’’.

“It is evident for weeks the Prime Minister doesn’t have the confidence of this house,’’ he said.

Labour is waiting for the disgruntled DUP party to sidle over, an almost unheard-of political ­alliance, but one that may happen because of its fury over Mrs May’s deal that imposes a trading fissure in the Northern Ireland-Britain relationship.

Mr Corbyn considers he will have only one shot at bringing down the government and he wants the timing and numbers to be right.

The DUP gives the Tories confidence and supply and deputy leader Nigel Dodds told Mrs May yesterday that what she says is “simply not credible’’ and unless there were changes to the agreement, it would be voted down.