BRITAIN: Parliament Votes To Seek Delay In Brexit

Vox reports:

The UK Parliament defeated a measure to hold a second referendum on Wednesday, turning down a chance to hold a people’s vote on the future of Brexit. MPs voted against it, 85 to 334 — a huge loss that wasn’t all that surprising because even some referendum advocates argued that Thursday wasn’t the time to take up the issue.

Labour, the main opposition party, whipped its members to abstain from voting. Even strong backers of a second referendum, such as the main advocacy group, the People’s Vote campaign, were lukewarm about the vote on Thursday, saying MPs should simply focus on achieving a Brexit deadline extension.

The New York Times reports:



Lawmakers voted 412 to 202 on Thursday to seek a delay in Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, a move that means the country almost certainly will not leave the bloc on schedule on March 29.

The decision comes at the end of two years of tortuous negotiations over a plan for withdrawal that Prime Minister Theresa May has failed twice to push through Parliament, leaving the process in limbo with just 15 days to go.

During that period Mrs. May had insisted that she would take her country out of the European Union on March 29, with or without a deal. But facing a mutiny from her own lawmakers, Mrs. May finally agreed to offer Parliament the option of seeking a delay.