Prime Minister Theresa May is under fire from all sides after writing to the European Union to request a three-month delay to Brexit, and blaming Parliament for the impasse.
“Why are we on bended knee to the EU begging for things we don’t need? Next week should be a simple choice between her deal and no deal,” demanded Iain Duncan Smith, a former party leader and influential eurosceptic.
“If it isn’t then it will be a national humiliation, we will have placed ourselves in the position of a supplicant,” he warned.
Mrs May claims Parliament is responsible for reducing the British government to its current unenviable position by rejecting her own proposed deal with the EU twice, but also voting against a “No Deal” exit in any circumstances while declining to support a re-run of the 2016 referendum.
She used a long-delayed statement on Wednesday night to chastise Parliament for saying what they did not want, but not what they do want, and continued to press for them to back her Withdrawal Agreement — although the Speaker of the House of Commons has suggested he may not even allow a third vote on the deal to be held, claiming it is against convention for the Government to put the same proposal to MPs over and over once after being rejected.
Brexiteer MPs, who have joined with Remain-supporting opposition MPs in voting against the deal, have bristled at the Prime Minister’s attempts to blame them for her proposed delay, having told her to pursue a different sort of deal from the get go, and urged her to leave with no deal rather than accept a poor deal when it was clear her strategy was failing.
“Prime Minister, it is entirely down to you,” blasted Tory backbencher Peter Bone on Wednesday. “History will judge you at this moment.”
Remainers both within and without the Prime Minister’s party were equally scathing, with Dominic Grieve — the former Attorney-General widely regarded as the ad hoc leader of the anti-Brexit diehard faction of the Tory Party — saying her last Prime Minister’s Questions session “was the worst moment I have experienced since I came into the House of Commons”.
“I have never felt more ashamed to be a member of the Conservative Party, or to be asked to lend her my support,” he added.
“She spent most of her time castigating the House for its misconduct. At no stage did she pause to consider that it is the way she is leading this Government which might be contributing to this situation.”
Even the European Union, which might have been expected to offer some support to the Prime Minister, to try to help her strong-arm MPs into backing a deal which allows them to dominate Britain long after its departure, or delay a Brexit they have never wanted in the first place, have failed to back her.
Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, has suggested the chances of a deal passing seem “frail and illusory”, and suggested he will only back the short extension to June 30th — more than three years after the British people voted to Leave the European Union — if the time is used to pass and implement the current Withdrawal Agreement.
Otherwise, the bloc will only countenance a very long extension, which they expect will be used by Britain to hold another EU referendum or Brexit-centred elections — with France, Belgium, and Spain all reportedly indicating that they will force a No Deal break-up on March 29th by vetoing any extension if Mrs May does not offer up a plan to the EU for a way out of the current stalemate.
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