London, United Kingdom – Britain’s prime minister has blinked in her fraught showdown with parliament over an unpopular deal she reached with the European Union on the country’s “Brexit” from the bloc.

A decision by Theresa May to cancel a widely anticipated vote on the agreement she has struck with the EU angered MPs and stirred calls for a vote of confidence in the UK’s beleaguered leader.

Monday’s move came after three days of debate in the House of Commons on the terms of Britain’s departure from the EU and their future relationship when it became clear that the Conservative premier faced a thrashing by her own MPs.

It highlights the high political stakes involved in Brexit for May personally – and how the issue continues to sow deep divisions in parliament and the country.  

John Bercow, the Speaker of the House, condemned the “discourteous” decision to pull Tuesday’s vote, which MPs had waged a ferocious battle to secure in the first place, after 164 parliamentarians had already spoken.

Robert Hazell, professor of government and the Constitution at University College London (UCL), said: “I am surprised that the PM has deferred the vote. As the Speaker stated, it was a grave discourtesy to the House of Commons to defer the vote at such a late stage, when over 160 MPs had spoken in the five-day debate.”

Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King’s College London, added the move “smacks of incompetence”.

“It’s a fairly odd way to treat parliament by saying ‘Go away, have a big debate, and then we will tell you it was all a waste of time because we are not bothering to vote on it anyway’.”

May is now under further pressure to treat the running sore plaguing her efforts to find a workable exit from the EU – the “backstop” insurance policy to avoid the creation of a “hard” customs border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, which has infuriated Conservative MPs.

The prime minister says she will now return to the EU as its leaders gather for a European Council meeting in a bid to secure changes.

What happens next?

The timing of the widely anticipated British parliamentary vote now becomes an even more important element of the Brexit calculus as the UK edges closer towards March 29, 2019 – the date on which it is scheduled to leave the EU, with or without a deal.

May hinted the process would resume in the New Year, suggesting MPs would have to vote by the end of January.

Menon said: “The crucial question will be when this deal comes back to parliament. If she brings it back in January, that really will focus attention on the danger of a ‘no deal’ Brexit because of course the clock will be ticking and we need to start discussing the Withdrawal Agreement Bill – and unless we are doing that by mid-January, we really are going to run out of time.”

May’s decision also provoked predictable calls for a vote of confidence in her leadership from Scottish and Welsh nationalists, although the main opposition Labour Party continues to keep its powder dry.  

Maddy Thimont Jack, a researcher at the Institute for Government, said: “For the moment it seems that Labour is holding its fire potentially to wait, because if she had lost a vote by 200 plus votes that would have been much greater ammunition for a confidence vote.”

While there are right-wing Conservatives who want to replace May, the bruised prime minister has weathered the storm because there is no credible alternative leader popular enough in the party to take over.

May’s efforts to convince the EU to make concessions – possibly over the role of the British parliament in approving any move into the “backstop” arrangement – face huge difficulties because European leaders insist they will not budge.

“I would have thought her bargaining power with the EU might have been greater, if she had gone back to Brussels after the deal had been defeated, rather than saying that she feared it would be defeated,” Hazell said.

Nonetheless, Brussels is as keen as London to avoid the UK departing in March without a deal, which could make them open to revisit some issues.

Second referendum likely?

While May’s cancellation of the vote yet again kicks the can down the road in her gruelling effort to resolve the most thorny political problem faced by the UK for generations, it could also crank up calls for a second referendum that could in theory reverse Brexit.

Thimont Jack said: “The greater the risk of no deal, the greater the pressure on MPs – particularly given that there doesn’t seem to be a majority in the House for no deal – to find a way forward. And one of those options on the table is still a further referendum.”

While the researcher said “it’s a fool’s game to try and predict what is going to happen over the next month”, there is qualified support for this view.

Menon added: “It does make a second referendum slightly more likely, but it is relatively hard to see how we get there, because this government would have to legislate for it and it is not something I can easily see Theresa May or one of her obvious successors doing.”

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London, United Kingdom – Saudi opposition figures from all over the world called for a coordinated effort to challenge Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s “oppressive” rule over the kingdom.

Speakers at the Second Saudi Diaspora Conference said after the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October, the time was right for a united front against the prince’s hardline policies.

Organised by Diwan London, a discussion hub with a focus on the Arabian Peninsula, and Saudi human rights organisation ALQST, the conference on Sunday had the participation of activists from the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, Switzerland and other places.

Many activists, including the son of jailed Muslim scholar Salman al-Odah, 61, who is known for his progressive positions on controversial issues, addressed the gathering via video call.

A Saudi prosecutor called for the death penalty for Salman al-Odah in September during a secret trial.

Due process

Sunday’s conference was a prelude to ALQST’s second annual summit on the decline of human rights in Saudi Arabia, which was held on Monday.

“This opposition calls for rights, democracy, equality and due process. We are all calling for the same thing,” said Yahya Assiri, head of ALQST. 

“None of our opposition is calling for rights of some over others, we only differ over how to get there.”

The dissidents said the meetings were a significant and unprecedented step towards a coordinated and united front against the Saudi government’s widespread crackdown on critics, which has seen scores imprisoned, tortured and stripped of their assets.

Madawi al-Rasheed, visiting professor at the LSE Middle East Centre, also highlighted the need to unify.

“This conference is the start,” she said. “I get asked why aren’t Saudi dissidents united? But uniting the opposition doesn’t mean all of us agreeing… We have different voices and all of them should be heard.”

The conference saw prominent opposition figures such as 72-year-old Mohamed al-Massari – an exiled Saudi physicist, political dissident, and chair of the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights – the first independent human rights organisation in the kingdom. Massari was granted asylum in the UK in1994.

Killing Khashoggi

Kahshoggi’s murder sent shockwaves throughout the international community, however, the response from governments has not been met with great enthusiasm.

Assiri said while Khashoggi’s case forced the international community to reconsider its relationship with the Gulf kingdom, the reaction didn’t go far enough.

Speaking about the way in which the regime has changed since Prince Mohammed toppled his cousin, Mohammed bin Nayef, in June 2017 to become crown prince in the kingdom, Assiri said: “The type of torture has worsened, the regime has changed. The regime has fallen in the eyes of the national community. It has no legitimacy.”

He said Saudi authorities smear their critics as spies, “agents of the West”, or traitors.

Political prisoners

Many women’s rights activists who were some of the first to champion their right to drive in the kingdom also spoke at the conference, calling for the immediate release of those locked up.

Amani al-Ahmadi said: “We never expected things to reach this level of monstrosity.”

Ahmadi spoke of the reports of sexual harassment being used as punishment against female detainees held after a wave of arrests of women’s rights activists earlier this year.

“Women have been second class citizens,” she said. “Only with the freedom of women can society be free.”

While Prince Mohammed has presented himself as a “reformist”, he has imprisoned activists, religious reformists and academics without charge.

“The struggle has reached every home,” Assiri said. “Everyone is struggling with unemployment, with repression.”

But Assiri added he believes things are changing. “Opposition to the regime is fashionable now. Lots of the youth define themselves as human rights defenders and feminists,” he said.

Image: Getty Images / sean gallup