British PM can't bring similar Brexit deal for another vote, Speaker rules

British Prime Minister Theresa May cannot make a third attempt in the House of Commons to try to win support for her European Union divorce deal unless the contents of the plan are substantially different, the Speaker said on Monday.

House Speaker John Bercow cited a 415-year-old parliamentary precedent in explaining his rationale.

"This is my conclusion: if the government wishes to bring forward a new proposition that is neither the same, nor substantially the same as that disposed of by the House on the 12th of March, this would be entirely in order," he said.

"What the government cannot legitimately do is to resubmit to the House the same proposition or substantially the same proposition as that of last week which was rejected by 149 votes."

May's deal was rejected by 230 votes in January.

As interpreter and enforcer of Parliament's rules, the Speaker has huge power. Bercow — whose booming cries of "Orderrrrr!" have made him something of a global celebrity — has often used his office to boost the influence of backbench lawmakers, to the annoyance of the government.

"Part of the responsibility of the Speaker is frankly to speak truth to power," he said Monday.

The ruling caused an uproar on the government side of the House of Commons. Solicitor General Robert Buckland said Britain was facing a "major constitutional crisis."

Buckland raised the prospect of prorogation — ending the parliamentary session prematurely — as one route around Bercow's ruling.

"Frankly, we could have done without this, but it's something we're going to have to negotiate with and deal with," he told BBC.

Chances seemed slim

It was believed that May was aiming to try a third time this week to persuade enough lawmakers to change their minds on her deal, ahead of her appearance with other EU leaders Thursday for a summit in Brussels.

Even without Bercow's declaration, her chances seemed slim, with no signs of a breakthrough. The government faces a deadline of the end of Tuesday to decide whether they have enough votes to pass the deal, so that a vote could be held on Wednesday.

May's spokesperson, James Slack, said Monday that the government would only hold a vote if there is "a realistic prospect of success."

May is likely to ask for a delay to Brexit at the Brussels summit.

If a deal is approved, she says she will ask the EU to extend the deadline until June 30 so that Parliament has time to approve the necessary legislation.

If it isn't, she will have to seek a longer extension that would mean Britain participating in May 23-26 elections for the European Parliament — something the government is keen to avoid.

May's goal is to win over Northern Ireland's small, power-brokering Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP's 10 lawmakers prop up May's Conservative government, and their support could influence pro-Brexit Conservatives to drop their opposition to the deal.

Influential Conservative Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg said he would wait to see what the DUP decided before making up his mind on whether to support May's deal.

"No deal is better than a bad deal, but a bad deal is better than remaining in the European Union," he told LBC radio.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Monday he saw "cautious signs of encouragement" that the deal might make it through Parliament this week.

Johnson still opposed

After months of political deadlock, British lawmakers voted last week to seek to postpone Brexit. That will likely avert a chaotic British withdrawal on the scheduled exit date of March 29 — although the power to approve or reject a Brexit extension lies with the EU, whose leaders are fed up with British prevarication.

EU leaders say they will only grant it if Britain has a solid plan for what to do with the extra time.

"We have to know what the British want: How long, what is the reason supposed to be, how it should go, what is actually the aim of the extension?" German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters in Brussels. "The longer it is delayed, the more difficult it will certainly be."

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders agreed, saying: "We are not against an extension in Belgium, but the problem is — to do what?"

Opposition to May's deal centres on a measure designed to ensure there is no hard border between the U.K.'s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland after Brexit.

The mechanism, known as the backstop, is a safeguard that would keep the U.K. in a customs union with the EU until a permanent new trading relationship is in place. Brexit supporters in Britain fear the backstop could be used to bind the country to EU regulations indefinitely, and the DUP fears it could lead to a weakening of the bonds between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

Talks between the government and the DUP are aimed at reassuring the party that Britain could not be trapped in the backstop indefinitely.

May said in an article for the Sunday Telegraph that failure to approve the deal meant "we will not leave the EU for many months, if ever."

"The idea of the British people going to the polls to elect MEPs [Members of the European Parliament] three years after voting to leave the EU hardly bears thinking about," she wrote.

But May suffered a setback Monday when former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson refused to support her deal.

Johnson, a staunch Brexiteer, used his column in the Daily Telegraph to argue that the backstop left the U.K. vulnerable to "an indefinite means of blackmail" by Brussels.