Speaker refuses vote on Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal

Thanks for joining us for another crucial day in the Brexit saga.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s vision for Brexit will see its first big parliamentary test on Tuesday, when lawmakers vote on his new withdrawal agreement bill. Here, Britain will – for the first time – get a feeling for what level of support Johnson’s bill has in Parliament.

It comes after the Prime Minister’s Brexit plan was delayed yet again on Monday. The Speaker of the House of Commons refused the government’s request to hold a meaningful vote on it – the second time in three days that Johnson’s plans were scuppered.

Read more about where things stand, here:

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street in central London on October 19, 2019. - British MPs gather on October 19 for a historic vote on Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, a decision that could see the UK leave the EU this month or plunge the country into fresh uncertainty. (Photo by Tolga AKMEN / AFP) (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)

Related article It's another crunch week for Brexit (no, we really mean it this time)

The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill has been published in all its glory, totaling 110 pages, on Parliament’s website. It’s the piece of legislation that will enact Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s deal.

Some lawmakers have argued that there is insufficient time to scrutinize the bill, after the government announced it hopes to wrap everything up by Thursday.

You can read the full text here, where it’s been published online:

The very brief moment when the Withdrawal Agreement bill was presented to Parliament.

Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has presented the Withdrawal Agreement bill to the House of Commons.

The first crucial vote on the Bill will come on Tuesday, on what’s confusingly called the “second reading” of the bill. Given the Speaker’s ruling today, it means this vote will be the first test of whether his Brexit plan is likely to pass the House of Commons.

European Parliament spokesman, Jaume Duch, has confirmed that the European Parliament “will vote on Brexit consent only after ratification by the UK.”

“The European Parliament is is ready to do its part of the job but for now, the ball is in UK’s court,” Duch added.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has shared a new video on Twitter, laying out a number of arguments for the deal he has negotiated with the European Union.

Michael Gove in the House of Commonns Monday night.

Michael Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, is now making a no-deal Brexit statement.

He told lawmakers that the government has not yet received a response from the EU to the UK’s Brexit deadline extension request, adding that as a result plans to mitigate a no-deal Brexit have been ramped up.

“We must ensure that the vessel which brings certainty passes,” Gove stressed to lawmakers, referring to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s deal.

We still don’t know the answer to this question, because Speaker John Bercow blocked a vote on the UK Prime Minister’s Brexit deal today.

But we will get a sense of the level of support for the deal in Parliament tomorrow, when the first vote is held on the detailed legislation that turns it into law.

That vote will be on what is confusingly known as the bill’s second reading. So which way will it go? CNN has attempted to estimate the level of support for Johnson’s deal, based on information on how lawmakers voted on Saturday, their public statements, and other reports in other credible media sources.

For the deal: Johnson can count on the support of the 287 voting Conservative lawmakers, including 28 hardline Brexiteers who never voted for his predecessor’s deal. He also has the support of 20 independent Conservatives, at least nine Labour MPs, and at least four independents – including one, John Woodcock, who appears to have changed his mind. That takes him to 320 – but in any vote, two MPs from this bloc would be nominated as tellers (counters of the votes), so that means he has 318 actual votes behind him.

Against the deal: Opposing Johnson are 231 Labour MPs, 35 members of the Scottish National Party, 19 Liberal Democrats, 10 Democratic Unionist Party MPs, five members of The Independent Group, 4 Welsh nationalists, three independent Conservatives and one Green MP. Another seven independent MPs would be likely to vote against the deal. That’s a total of 315. Remove two tellers and you get a final tally of 313.

Three Labour MPs and one independent Northern Ireland unionist remain uncommitted, but are leaning towards supporting the deal.

Based on these calculations it seems that the second reading should pass tomorrow. It may even pass by a bigger margin than these numbers suggest. Some opponents of the bill may wish to ensure it gets to its next parliamentary stage simply in order to try and amend it – perhaps by adding a provision for a second referendum, or keeping the UK in a customs union with the EU.

Pete Wishart in the House of Commons.

Scottish National Party lawmaker Pete Wishart has told Jacob Rees-Mogg that his proposed Business Statement is “totally unacceptable,” as lawmakers won’t have enough time to look over the deal.

Jacob Rees-Mogg in the House of Commons Monday.

Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, has updated Parliament on what the rest of the week will look like.

During the Business Statement, Rees-Mogg confirmed the Government hoped to wrap everything up and pass all key Brexit legislation by Thursday – in just three days’ time. By British parliamentary standards, that’s breakneck speed. The legislation is likely to be fiendishly complicated, with reports that the bill will be more than 100 pages long.

Three days is not a great deal of time at all to consider such complex legislation, and we can be sure that some lawmakers opposed to Brexit will try and frustrate its progress.

The government wants to get everything done by October 31, so it can stick to Boris Johnson’s promise to get Brexit done by that date, do or die. But the government has already been forced by law to ask for an extension to the Brexit process until January 31 – and it may find out that it will need some of that time, after all.

See what’s planned, below:

European Parliament Brexit Coordinator Guy Verhofstadt has reiterated that the European Union will not ratify the EU Withdrawal Agreement before it has been ratified by the British Parliament, adding that it is now “up to the UK” to decide.

“The Brexit Steering Group met this afternoon to discuss the latest developments in the UK. We agreed to advise the Conference of Presidents to await the full ratification on the UK side before the [European Parliament] votes on the deal,” Verhofstadt tweeted Monday. 

“It’s now up to the UK Parliament to make their choice.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street on October 19.

Boris Johnson is running into quite a few of the same problems as Theresa May. 

That shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to Johnson, of course. His Brexit deal, the high point of his premiership so far, is very similar to the exact same deal that May at the time considered a huge triumph. 

And as Johnson himself knows only too well, the opposition to that deal in the UK Parliament was enough ultimately to end May’s career. 

For Johnson, however, the Commons is in many respects less receptive to him than to May. He’s lost several of his own MPs to rival parties and expelled 21 more for voting against him. The opposition parties, hardly fans of May, are also more united in their resolve against Johnson. 

That could go some way to explaining why Johnson hasn’t managed to put his deal to a vote yet. While the consensus view in Westminster is that Johnson is closer to having the votes to pass a deal than May, it should be noted that MPs are finding new and unique ways to wreck Johnson’s plans. 

On Saturday, an amendment to the so-called meaningful vote meant that Johnson, to some extent, lost control of the Brexit process, something MPs were only too happy to see happen. 

They will no doubt relish the chance to tweak and amend the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, the actual legislation for leaving the EU, over the course of the week after the government presents it tonight. 

Presenting the bill itself, rather than a meaningful vote on his deal indicating that Parliament is willing to vote for it, has become the government’s only option, if it’s to get Brexit done by October 31. 

John Bercow’s decision to decline a second go at the meaningful vote has left Johnson with no choice but to play a very risky game and chance his entire Brexit plan being blown out of the water by the end of this week. 

MPs frustrating the will of the Prime Minister and a Speaker standing in the way of government plans. It’s all starting to sound very familiar. And one needn’t look too far back in history to see how it all worked out for May. 

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay in the House of Commons.

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay has told the House of Commons that the Withdrawal Agreement bill will be published later. He went on to criticize the UK’s main opposition party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, for delaying its publication after requesting an urgent question that demanded the very same thing.

“Genius,” Barclay taunted.

“The sooner this urgent question and the next urgent question are concluded, the sooner it will be available to members,” he added.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Today’s Brexit developments have been happening at breakneck speed. Here’s a summary of where we are.

No new vote on the deal: The UK government wanted to hold another vote on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal today, after lawmakers deferred a decision on Saturday. It’s not usually possible to hold a vote on the same issue twice in a parliamentary session, but Parliament on Saturday voted to amend the motion on the deal, so some constitutionalists argued that it wasn’t technically the same thing. But the Speaker, John Bercow, didn’t agree and blocked the vote. 

Brexit legislation introduced: The government is due to introduce the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) on Monday, the piece of legislation that will enact Johnson’s deal. Lawmakers on Saturday voted to make approval of the deal conditional on the legislation passing all its stages in the UK Parliament. That puts a lot more pressure on the progress of this bill.

More votes to come: The first crucial vote on the WAB will come on Tuesday, on what’s confusingly called the “second reading” of the bill. Given the Speaker’s ruling today, it means this vote will be the first test of whether his Brexit plan is likely to pass the House of Commons.

But, but, but: There’s much talk in political circles about whether opposition lawmakers could amend the withdrawal bill as it passes through the House of Commons this week. They could vote for a second referendum to be added to it, or they could change the substance of the deal itself, for example by mandating that the whole of the UK remains in an EU customs union. The government would be deeply opposed to either of these outcomes, and could choose to withdraw the legislation rather than implement it.

View in the EU: Given the failure to pass Johnson’s Brexit deal on Saturday, the Prime Minister was forced to request an extension to the Brexit process from Brussels. The law required the UK to ask that the current deadline of October 31 be extended by three months, to January 31. The EU is watching developments in London with interest, and an EU official told CNN that it would await the outcome of various votes this week before deciding what to do about the request.

Downing Street has told Britain’s PA news agency that it is “disappointed” with Speaker John Bercow’s ruling.

“We are disappointed that the Speaker has yet again denied us the chance to deliver on the will of the British people,” Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said, according to PA.

Speaker John Bercow is facing a barrage of criticism in the House of Commons, including accusations of bias.

Conservative Brexiteer Bernard Jenkin told Bercow “it is remarkable how often you please one lot and not the other.”

“It is most unusual for a Speaker so often to prevent the government of having debated the matters which the government wish to put before the House.”

Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin at Downing Street.

Bercow quickly slapped down Jenkin’s claims of bias, telling the House: “When he was getting decisions in his favor, he wasn’t grumbling. He’s grumbling now because he doesn’t like the judgment, but the judgment I’ve made is an honorable and fair one and I’m afraid if [Jenkin] doesn’t like it there’s not much I can do about that. I’m trying to do the right thing for the House.”

Conservative lawmaker Ben Bradley has expressed his frustrations over John Bercow’s ruling in the House of Commons Monday, tweeting that “once again the Speaker and the House look inward to internal process and bureaucracy whilst people outside of this place just want us to bloody get on with it.”

Conservative lawmaker Peter Bone.

Conservative Brexiteer Peter Bone has questioned the Speaker’s decision to not allow lawmakers to vote on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s deal.

Here’s what he asked John Bercow:

And here’s Bercow’s reply:

The Speaker, however, defended his decision telling Bone: “I note the wider points that the honorable gentleman makes and I respect the fact that it is a point of view … I think I have made the argument for, and explained the rationale behind the judgment that I have made.”

Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow.

House of Commons Speaker John Bercow told lawmakers that the Government’s motion was “in substance, the same” as the one presented on Saturday, and concluded that there had been no change in circumstances since then.

UK Parliament Speaker John Bercow has refused permission for another vote on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal on Monday.

Bercow said it “would be repetitive and disorderly” to hold a vote.

Questions have just wrapped up on defense issues. The House of Commons Speaker John Bercow is announcing his decision on whether a meaningful vote on Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal will be put to lawmakers.

Bercow hinted on Saturday that he may not allow the vote to take place, as the same provision can’t be debated twice in a parliamentary session.