British Prime Minister Theresa May is facing a no-confidence vote Wednesday after members of parliament voted overwhelmingly against her plan to divorce Britain from the European Union.
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the main opposition Labor Party, announced he had filed a motion of no confidence in the government immediately after the result Tuesday.
If May loses, Britain would hold a general election. But most analysts say they expect May will survive the vote, and the minority Northern Ireland party she relies on to keep her minority government in office has said it would back the government.
Tuesday's vote was the biggest parliamentary reversal ever handed a sitting government, with lawmakers — including more than 100 rebels from her own ruling Conservative party — refusing to endorse a highly contentious Brexit deal.
The government’s defeat plunges into greater disarray Britain’s scheduled March 29 divorce from the European Union.
EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said Wednesday that after the British parliament's rejection, the risk of reaching the deadline with no deal in place is higher than ever.
The much anticipated historic vote by the House of Commons of a draft deal, which took two years of ill-tempered haggling with European leaders to conclude, now throws up in the air the whole Brexit project, with major questions remaining unanswered about when Britain will exit the EU, how it will do so and even whether it still will.
?After the vote, May complained "the vote tells us nothing" about what the Commons would agree to when it comes to Brexit.
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The defeat of May's Brexit plan will give further momentum to a burgeoning campaign in the House of Commons, and among Remainers in the country for a second referendum, according to analysts. Remainers hope a replayed referendum would reverse the Brexit plebiscite of 2016, which Leavers narrowly won.
The vote on the deal, which was due in December but was delayed by the government when it became clear there was insufficient backing for it to pass, also leaves hanging in the balance May's own future as prime minister. Her aides insisted at the end of a day of high political drama that she won't resign.
"She is the person who has to deliver Brexit," said British business minister Claire Perry, who said May doesn't need to resign.
"There will be other attempts at this. There will be strenuous efforts to improve on the deal," Perry said.
Earlier on Tuesday, May discussed post-defeat options and indicated she would plow on. Her officials say she will try to buy more time and return to Brussels to try to cajole EU leaders into a renegotiation.
But the sheer scale of the defeat throws into doubt whether even a reshaped Brexit Withdrawal Agreement would secure parliamentary approval in the future — that is, if the EU is prepared to reopen negotiations.
"Her Plan B, more of the same, is hopelessly optimistic," said commentator Isabel Oakeshott.
EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker canceled an event planned in Strasbourg, France, Wednesday so he can remain in Brussels for possible emergency talks with May. May's RAF jet was put on standby, readied for her to travel to the Belgian capital.
Juncker tweeted when news of the historic vote broke: "I take note with regret of the outcome of the vote in the House of Commons this evening. I urge the UK to clarify its intentions as soon as possible. Time is almost up."
EU president Donald Tusk reflected the frustration of many in Brussels, tweeting: "If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?"
As the vote neared, May's aides made several last-ditch efforts to minimize the scale of the crushing defeat by offering amendments to the main motion on the deal that they hoped would peel away some of the Conservative rebels. But to their fury, Commons Speaker John Bercow, blocked their moves.
Labor's Tulip Siddiq, who is pregnant, was pushed through the voting lobbies in a wheelchair after postponing a planned Caesarean section so she could vote against the Brexit deal.
While the drama played out in the House of Commons, outside the parliament, noisy, placard-waving crowds of Brexiters and Remainers mounted protests urging the draft plan be approved or cast aside. There was a hush among the protesters in the minutes before the result was announced.