Efforts to persuade MPs to back Theresa May's Brexit deal will continue on Thursday, a day after she promised to quit as PM if it was approved. Her pledge brought some on-side, such as ex-foreign secretary Boris Johnson.
MPs in the House of Commons have voted for an amendment enabling them to take control of Commons business and stage a series of “indicative” votes on the way forward for Brexit.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plans were thrown into further turmoil on Monday when the speaker of parliament ruled that she could not put her divorce deal to a new vote unless it was re-submitted in a fundamentally different form.
The United Kingdom government will support a backbench amendment to the Brexit deal that calls for the planned Irish backstop to be replaced by alternative arrangements. Tory MPs will be told to vote for Sir Graham Brady's proposal when the Commons votes on a series of amendments to Theresa May's plan on Tuesday.
Such is the anger with the Speaker of the UK Parliament at senior levels of government, it has been suggested he could be blocked from getting a peerage when he retires. Ministers are furious at what they see as John Bercow's bias during Commons debates on Brexit.
Theresa May says she has called off Tuesday's crucial vote on her Brexit deal because it “would be rejected by a significant margin”. She said MPs backed much of the deal she has struck with the EU but there was concern over the Northern Irish backstop.
The UK government may have broken Parliamentary rules by not publishing Brexit legal advice, the Commons Speaker has said. John Bercow said there was an “arguable case” that a contempt of Parliament has been committed.
John Bercow has been re-elected unopposed as Speaker of Britain's House of Commons as MPs returned to Parliament for the first time after the election. The choice of the next Speaker was the first act of the new Parliament before newly elected MPs are sworn in.
Conservative MP Rory Stewart has been selected to chair the British House of Commons defense committee. In a short statement to the Commons, Speaker John Bercow said 479 MPs voted in the election for the post. In the final round of voting, Mr Stewart got 226 votes. His rival, Julian Lewis received 212 votes. There was one spoilt ballot paper.