Theresa May delays parliamentary vote on Brexit deal

British Prime Minister Theresa May announced Monday that she would delay a vote on the withdrawal agreement she negotiated with the European Union, rather than face a devastating loss in Parliament that would have threatened both her Brexit deal and her political survival.

“If we went ahead and held the vote tomorrow, the deal would be rejected by a significant margin,” May conceded to a packed chamber in the House of Commons.

Nearly 100 members of her own Conservative Party had signaled they would vote against her half-in, half-out version of Brexit. Such a defeat would be hard for any prime minister to survive, but more so for May, who failed to win a majority for the Tories after a disastrous election campaign in 2017.

On Monday in Parliament, May instead chose the jaw-dropping humiliation of acknowledging the likely loss before it happened.

SOURCE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/as-perilous-brexit-vote-looms-in-british-parliament-speculation-abounds-over-a-delay/2018/12/10/d2143f14-f8ab-11e8-8642-c9718a256cbd_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.752287784db9