Politics

May sets new deadline with Britons to vote in EU elections – ‘GREAT SHAME’


Government insiders say the Prime Minister given up hope of cancelling UK participation in the European Parliament poll by securing Commons approval for her withdrawal deal within the next three weeks.

Instead, she is preparing for a determined push to force crucial withdrawal legislation through Parliament in time for the country to quit the EU by the end of June.

Her new timetable will mean British voters are set to elect a new troop of MEPs next month – likely to include figures from the new Brexit Party including Nigel Farage and former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe – who will have lost their jobs by the time the new European Parliament assembles on July 2.

One source said: “The focus now is on hitting the June 30 deadline so the MEPs don’t take up their seats.”

Most Tory MPs expect the party to be hammered in the euro elections scheduled for May 22, with the Brexit Party tipped by many to top the poll.

Mrs May is said to be resigned to the embarrassment – and the £100million cost to the taxpayers – of allowing the euro elections to go ahead in the hope that ministers can use the extra parliamentary time will allow her to persuade MPs from across the Commons to back her Brexit deal.

Another source that while ministers regarded staging the elections as a “toxic pill” there was “the equally if not more, toxic pill of actually sending them there to take their seats.”

Mrs May is understood to have abandoned plans to introduce the Government’s EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill, drafted to put her EU exit deal onto the statute book, next week.

Her decision means the Government almost certainly cannot hit the May 22 deadline for approving her Brexit deal needed to cancel the UK taking part in European Parliamentary elections the following day.

Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom failed to mention the Withdrawal Agreement Bill when announcing the parliamentary business for next week yesterday.

The Brexiteer Cabinet minister said it was “unacceptable” that EU elections were almost certain to go ahead next month.

She told MPs: “It is absolutely unacceptable that here we are, three years on, faced with the need to fight European elections because this House has not found it in its heart to be able to allow us to fulfil the will of the people.

“That is a great shame and is something I am personally extremely upset about, and it is absolutely vital that we bring in the Withdrawal Agreement Bill to give this House the opportunity to make progress on delivering on the will of the people.”

Downing Street insiders blame the lack of progress in the cross-party talks with Labour for the delay in bringing the legislation to the Commons.

Ministers have been holding talks with Labour frontbenchers for over three weeks but not further substantial discussions are currently scheduled.

A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister last night rejected suggestions that talks process was petering out.

She said: “Work is going on at pace to try and bring this stage of the process to a conclusion.

The spokeswoman added that the Government wanted to introduce the Withdrawal Bill into Parliament “as soon as possible”.

Brexit-backing Tory MP Philip Hollobone described the staging of the European elections in the UK as “ridiculous”.

Speaking in the Commons, the Kettering MP said: “When voters in Kettering voted 61 percent to leave the European Union in the referendum three years ago, they did not expect to be asked to vote in European elections this year, and they find it ridiculous that they are being asked to do so.”

Former minister Tom Pursglove, who quit the Government in protest at the Prime Minister’s deal, said: “Let’s just stop mucking about and call the whole thing off.”

But Conservative Party chairman Brandon Lewis defended the move and insisted there was still time for the Commons to approve the Withdrawal Bill and cancel the euro poll.

He told MPs: “Nobody who voted in 2016, on either side of the debate, ever expected to vote in a European election again once they saw that result. I still hope there is an opportunity for them not to have to do so.”



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