Good morning. Today Parliament sits for its first Saturday sitting since the Falklands War in April 1982. MPs will debate whether to give the PM the “green light” for his renegotiated Brexit deal. The @commonslibrary explains here what’s going on commonslibrary.parliament.uk/parliament-and… (1/x)
However, we don’t know yet whether MPs will have a straight “yes or no” vote on the Prime Minister’s deal. This is because we can talk about “approval” for his deal in two distinct senses.
The first sense is “legal”: there are two laws that say the PM needs MPs’ approval. (2/x)
The first sense is “legal”: there are two laws that say the PM needs MPs’ approval. (2/x)
The first law is s.13 of EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018. One of several “conditions” for ratifying a withdrawal agreement is that MPs pass a “meaningful vote” on the treaty and a joint declaration about the next stage of negotiations. Theresa May failed to pass this for her deal. (3/x)
The second law is section 1 of the so-called “Benn Act” which Parliament passed in September. It says the PM has to ask for a 3-month extension of Article 50 if the Gov’t can’t get MPs to approve its deal (or a no deal exit) by today. (4/x)
Some MPs are willing to support the Prime Minister’s deal “in principle” and to help him pass the Act of Parliament he also needs to ratify it. However they are concerned about how little time there is to get that Bill through Parliament before 31 October 2019. (5/x)
So they want to make sure Parliament has a bit more time if it needs it to get a deal over the line, but they don’t want to have to take the risk of approving the deal now in case the Bill encounters difficulties passing in the next 10 days or so (6/x)
The view might be taken that even if there is a bare majority of MPs willing to vote for this deal “in principle” its supporters cannot guarantee that that their “coalition” will hold up on key votes on the Bill. (7/x)
So @oletwinofficial’s amendment tries to decouple “legal” aspect of approval from “political” support for the deal. He wants to withhold support from the deal so that the PM must ask for an extension while also giving an “indicative” vote on whether Gov’t can pass a Bill. (8/x)
This approach makes today’s votes a little bit “fuzzy”. You might end up with superficially “strange” voting patterns. MPs will be asked first whether they want to vote on Gov’ts motion or on Letwin’s amended motion, before actually voting on whether to agree one at all. (9/x)
If MPs decide they don’t want to vote on the Government’s motion, their choice effectively becomes a vote on whether (a) to withhold approval for now while indicating they may give it after an extension is granted or (b) simply to reject the deal outright (10/x)
Throughout all this it’s worth remembering that just because the UK asks for an extension, it doesn’t mean the EU will grant it (or as long or short an extension as UK asks for). But also, if both sides ratify a deal, the UK doesn’t need to use up the “full” extension. (11/x)
If you want to understand what’s going on, focus less on the votes and more on what the Gov’t says it will do next in any “Points of Order” after the votes. Key issues: (a) will they seek an extension and (b) will they introduce the Withdrawal Agreement Bill next week? (12/12)
