ER Editor: Theresa May has narrowly survived a no-confidence vote after her disastrous Brexit deal was voted down. See RT’s Theresa May’s government survives no-confidence vote (VIDEO):
The way forward for Brexit is not yet clear and May’s options are now limited, given that the Brexit deal she was offering was voted down so dramatically on Tuesday.
Gavin Barrett, a professor at the UCD Sutherland School of Law in Dublin, told RT that May will now have to decide if her second preference is a no-deal Brexit or a second referendum. Her preference will likely be a no-deal Brexit, Barrett said, adding that “since no other option commands a majority in the House,” a no-deal exit is now “the default option.”
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BREXIT CRISIS: Support for Parliament PLUMMETS as chaos reigns – SHOCK EXPRESS POLL
EXCLUSIVE: Public respect for Parliament has plummeted following the Westminster paralysis over Brexit, a damning opinion poll has revealed.
MACER HALL, POLITICAL EDITOR
They were quizzed in the run up to the crushing Commons defeat for Theresa May’s EU Withdrawal Agreement earlier this week that has left the Brexit process hanging in the balance.
Their response is almost certain to be seen as a warning from the electorate that Parliament is at risk of losing the public’s trust completely.
Andrew Hawkins, executive chairman of ComRes, said: “Parliamentarians will be alarmed to see the extent to which the Brexit stalemate has damaged the reputation of politics and politicians and is triggering significant support for constitutional change.
“One important legacy of Brexit may well be a clamour for rebooting the wider political system, including electoral and House of Lords reform, scrapping the honours system and more devolution.”
He added: “When the dust settles after Brexit, it will take a long time for Parliament to regain the trust of the wider electorate.
“Whatever other impact Brexit may have, it is already pitching Parliament against the will of the voting public and the staggeringly low levels of positive sentiment towards politicians should give enormous cause for concern.”
The Prime Minister survived an attempt by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to oust her from office when Tory and Democratic Unionist Party MPs united to back her in a confidence vote in the Commons.
She was poised to reach out MPs from both sides of the Commons in the coming days to try to build a new Brexit plan with cross-party support.
But ahead of the latest political maneuvering over Brexit, today’s Daily Express ComRes poll revealed deepening disenchantment with Westminster among the voters as a result of the deadlock over the issue.
Only six per cent of voters agreed that Parliament was “emerging from the Brexit process in a good light”, the Daily Express ComRes poll found. Nearly four out of five (79%) of voters quizzed in the poll disagreed with the statement with very similar feelings among both Tory and Labour voters.
Only 10% thought politicians were in touch with the mood of the country while 74% disagreed. Two thirds (67%) of voters in the survey felt the political system did not enable their voice to be heard.
Less than a third of voters (31%) wanted Brexit cancelled or a second referendum on the UK’s relationship with the EU to be held.
Voters in the survey overwhelmingly wanted a string of radical reforms to overhaul the political system.
A majority (54%) backed reducing the number of MPs in the Commons from 650 to 600, 62% wanted more decisions to be made at a local level rather than in Parliament and 72% wanted a US-style written constitution that set out clear legal rules for how civil servants and ministers should act.
Forty-three per cent wanted more decisions made by national referendums as long as the votes were made legally binding. Twenty -seven per cent opposed the idea.
More than half (52%) also wanted Westminster’s first-past-the-post system for electing MPs to be replaced with “a more proportional voting system while 45% wanted the House of Lords replaced with an elected senate.
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