Theresa May postpones vote on her Brexit deal
Updated 00:26, 14-Dec-2018
CGTN
["europe"]
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May has called off Tuesday's crucial vote on her deal to pull Britain out of the European Union, because it “would be rejected by a significant margin”.
May said MPs backed much of the deal she has struck with the EU, but there was concern over the Northern irish backstop.
She expressed confidence that the deal would still go through after she addresses the MPs concerns.
May said she would be “deferring” the Commons vote until she had made efforts to address concerns over the Northern Ireland border “backstop” plan.
The Prime Minister told the legislators that she would meet EU leaders ahead of a summit later this week, about the “clear concerns” expressed by MPs.
She also said she will be “looking closely at new ways of empowering the House of Commons to ensure that any provision for a backstop has democratic legitimacy”.
May's deal has elicited mixed reactions from leaders in the UK.
The latest reaction came from a committee of lawmakers responsible for scrutinizing the deal.
The cross-party Committee on Exiting the European Union (EU) slammed it as “a huge step into the unknown”, a huge blow to May's efforts to win parliamentary approval for the bill.
The committee in a report published on Sunday, said “[the deal] does not give the British people or our businesses the clarity and the certainty they need about our future trading relationship with the EU in five or ten years'time.”