UK Parliament approves Brexit amendment on replacing Irish backstop
British lawmakers instructed Prime Minister Theresa May to demand that Brussels replace the Irish border arrangement known as the “backstop,” in a last-ditch attempt to renegotiate an exit treaty that the European Union says it will not change.
The amendment, put forward by influential Conservative lawmaker Graham Brady, passed by 317 votes to 301.
It is intended to strengthen May’s hand when she returns to Brussels to try to renegotiate — something the EU again ruled out within minutes of the vote.
With two months left until Britain is due by law to leave the EU, investors and allies have urged the British government to clinch a deal to allow an orderly exit from the club it joined in 1973.
“Tonight, a majority of honourable members have said they would support a deal with changes to the backstop,” May said, only two weeks after her divorce deal was crushed in the biggest parliamentary defeat in modern British history.”It is now clear that there is a route that can secure a substantial and sustainable majority in the house for leaving the EU with a deal,” May said,
She added that she would seek “legally binding changes.”The amendment calls for the backstop to be replaced with unspecified “alternative arrangements” to avoid the reintroduction of border checks in Ireland, and says Parliament would support May’s Brexit deal if this change were made.
