EXCITING NEWS: TNG WhatsApp Channel is LIVE…
Subscribe for FREE to get LIVE NEWS UPDATE. Click here to subscribe!
By Aubrey Allegretti, Political Reporter, Sky News
Britain has been plunged deeper into Brexit uncertainty after Theresa May lost a last-ditch bid to get her divorce deal through parliament.
MPs voted by 344 to 286 against her withdrawal agreement, secured with Brussels back in November after 18 months of negotiations.
The prime minister took the unusual step of only asking parliament to vote on one half of her deal after suffering two historic defeats on the full package.
But it was not enough for opposition MPs, ardent Brexiteer Tories and the government’s confidence and supply partner the Democratic Unionist Party.
So when will Brexit happen now?
Under the terms of the Brexit delay Mrs May secured from the EU last week, the UK is on course to leave the bloc on 12 April.
The other deadline – 22 May – would only have applied if MPs passed the withdrawal agreement today.
There are now two options for Brexit.
Either the UK falls out of the EU without a deal in two weeks’ time.
Or Mrs May, or whoever is prime minister when the time comes, heads to Brussels to ask for another delay.
She said the vote today means Britons will “almost certainly” elect MEPs to the European Parliament in elections taking place from 23-26 May.
EU Council President Donald Tusk has announced he is calling a summit with other Mrs May leaders on 10 April.
The only other certainty is that MPs will get a series of non-binding votes again on different Brexit scenarios, in a bid to find out what a majority in parliament would support.
That chance will come on Monday, and comes after a similar exercise on Wednesday.
What does that mean for Mrs May’s future as PM?
The prime minister tried to shift her MPs over the line to supporting the deal by promising to stand down if it passed.
She vowed to let someone else take over to lead the second major phase of negotiations on the future relationship, so long as Brexit happened on 22 May.
But with that deadline now seemingly scrapped, it is unclear what she plans to do next.
She hinted that the process of asking MPs to support the deal was reaching its “limit”, with some suggesting a general election could be in the offing.
Some Tory MPs clearly want Mrs May to step down immediately, but the path to forcibly removing her is fraught.
They have to wait until December to hold a no confidence vote in her just through the party, after she survived the first attempt four months ago, giving her a year’s immunity.
The only other option is to hold a no confidence vote through the House of Commons, on which every MP is eligible to vote.
But Conservative rules mean if they did so they would lose the whip and therefore likely their seat in parliament at the election.
If Mrs May does step down, the 1922 committee of Tory MPs in Westminster will decide on the timeline for holding another leadership contest.
However, the race is already under way, given Mrs May’s promise to stand down if her deal passes.