UK Parliament to vote for third time on Theresa May's agreement for Brexit

For the third time and when a positive exit to the UK crisis still does not appear, British Prime Minister Theresa May will present her unpopular Brexit agreement for the third time on Friday but this time without the political declaration that accompanies it.

The UK government is running out of overtime as the European Union (EU) agreed to prevent the UK from leaving without an agreement Friday, March 29, date that for two years was inscribed in red in the calendars as the day of the Brexit.

The EU has warned that If the United Kingdom wants an extension until May 22, it must adopt the Treaty of Retirement this week. Otherwise, you will have to submit a Plan B before April 12 or be forced to participate in a brutal Brexit.

"Tomorrow's proposal (Friday) offers Parliament the opportunity to guarantee this extension"Andrea Leadsom, Minister of Relations with Parliament, explained Thursday. And he called the deputies, who had already rejected the text sounding twice, "what back and make sure we leave the EU on May 22nd, giving citizens and businesses the security they need. "

Last week, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the controversial John Bercow, prevented a third vote by saying that Parliament could not reconsider an "unchanged" proposal during the same parliamentary session.

To overcome this obstacle, the executive decided to submit only this time the Treaty of Retirement, a 585-page document stipulating the terms of the British exit of the block, without the 26-page political declaration that accompanies it to outline the future relationship that both parties still have to negotiate.

The maneuver was effective with Bercow, who accepted that "the motion is new, substantially different". But it angered many opposition MPs, puzzled by this unexpected new move that adds confusion to chaos.

The debate will begin at 21:30 (local time and GMT) and end at 14:30, said Leadsom.

To wait for the text to be approved, May must convince at least 75 of his own rebellious lawmakers, who voted against him on the previous occasion, considering that the Prime Minister had mismanaged the negotiations with Brussels.

Wednesday, playing his last card to try to convince them, the leader has promised to resign as soon as the country leaves the EU and will leave another conservative leader in the next phase of negotiationsthat of a future relationship that should take the form of an ambitious free trade agreement.

The strategy has managed to convince some of the most outspoken critics of the deal, now facing the possibility that the country, plunged into political chaos because of its inability to reach a conclusion, end up negotiating a sweeter Brexit or calling a second referendum.

Among them, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson, who resigned in 2018 for his opposition to May's strategy and that since then he has become one of his main rivals.

"Johnson is absolutely right to say that the palpable risk of losing the Brexit, added to the possibility of a change in the next phase (trading) means that we have no choice but to vote in favor ", tweeted Wednesday his friend, also Conservative MP Conor Burns.

May still has rebels to convince, others 15 according to the British media, and especially, the North Irish trade unionist party recalcitrant DUP, of which 10 deputies depend on their parliamentary majority.

This considers the so-called "Irish Safeguard", at the most conflictual point of the agreement, a mechanism of last resort to prevent the restoration of a hard border on the island of Ireland that jeopardizes the fragile peace agreement that, in 1998, ended decades of bloody confrontation in the region.

The DUP has already announced Wednesday that it would reject the text. "Since the necessary changes that we want for the safeguarding are not agreed between the government and the European Union (…), we will not support the government when it organizes a new vote"he said in a statement.