London: A defiant Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would not negotiate a further delay to Britain’s departure from the European Union after losing a vote in parliament on Saturday that means he is obliged to request a postponement.
More than three years since Parliament voted 322 to 306 in favour of an amendment put forward by Oliver Letwin, a former Conservative cabinet minister, that withheld support for the Brexit deal Johnson clinched with the EU on Thursday. According to legislation passed earlier, the vote means Johnson is obliged to write to the EU seeking a delay beyond Britain’s scheduled departure date of Oct. 31.
But Johnson has repeatedly said he will not do this and on Saturday he stuck to that line. “I will not negotiate a delay with the EU and neither does the law compel me to do so,” Johnson told parliament.
“I will tell our friends and colleagues in the EU exactly what I have told everyone else in the last 88 days that I have served as prime minister: that further delay would be bad for this country, bad for the European Union and bad for democracy.”
The European Commission said Britain must now inform the EU executive of its next steps as soon as possible.
The government will not now hold a vote on its Brexit deal on Saturday as planned. Parliament will debate and vote on Monday on whether to approve Johnson’s Brexit deal, the leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg said. On a day of high drama, lawmakers held the first Saturday sitting since the 1982 Argentine invasion of the Falklands, while hundreds of thousands of people gathered to march on parliament demanding another referendum on EU membership. reuters