By Ben Kerrigan-
Leadsom, the leader of the Commons has urged Parliament not to be purist, but to adapt a reasonable approach in resolving the Brexit crisis facing Britain and The EU.
A leading Brexiter of the cabinet, she indicated that the UK was no longer pushing for actual changes to the withdrawal agreement as the means of resolving the backstop issue. She said that it was important not to be “purist” and that what mattered was ensuring the UK could not be held in the backstop permanently, not how that was achieved.
She did not rule out the possibility of the final vote on the Brexit deal to be held in the week before the UK is due to leave the EU on 29 March.
She confirmed May will bring amendable motion on Brexit for debate in the Commons on Wednesday February 27 if the deal has not been reached by then. Leadsom expressed confidence that all the legislation needed to be passed by 29 March would be passed by then. When it was put to her that parliament was not passing the necessary legislation, she denied this. ”We have up to 600 statutory instruments [to pass]. We have now laid 411 of them … They are being passed … Those that need to be passed by 29 March, I am confident will be passed. There is a huge amount of work going on in the committee rooms.
Leadsom’s comments come after Theresa May promised MPs a final, decisive vote on her Brexit deal with the EU – but said she would not pursue this before securing changes to the Irish backstop clause. The PM said she needed “some time” to get the changes she believes MPs want. May’s efforts to achieve reasonable changes to the backstop has been met with a wall of frustrating opposition from EU bosses over the months. She seems to be caught up between a hard place and a rock.
May promised to update MPs again on 26 February and, if she had not got a new deal by then, to give them a say on the next steps in non-binding votes.
Jeremy Corbyn accused her of “running down the clock” in an effort to “blackmail” MPs into backing her deal.
Britain is currently leaving the EU on 29 March, with or without a deal.
She insisted that Theresa May’s letter to Jeremy Corbyn at the weekend did in practice rule out the UK staying in the customs union for good. (Some readers thought that May was leaving the door open to customs union membership in the letter because she did not explicitly say she would never agree to this.