Wednesday 16 January 2019 11:40 am | Updated: Monday 03 June 2019 3:44 am

Brexit: How does a no confidence motion work, and what will happen today?

The government will today face a vote of no confidence after Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal was rejected by parliament last night. But what is a vote of no confidence, and how will it play out?

How it works

A vote of no confidence was called for by opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday, after May's draft withdrawal agreement was defeated by 230 votes.

The debate will be the first of its kind since the 2011 Fixed-term Parliaments Act was put in place, which prevents prime ministers from calling an election outside of the end of the five-year term of government.

A motion must be tabled by an MP, which says: "This house has no confidence in Her Majesty's government." Ministers then must choose to allow time for the motion to be heard, which May promised to do given "the scale and importance" of her deal's defeat.

MPs will then debate the motion, and a vote will take place. Should a majority be secured in favour of no confidence, the government would then have 14 days to try and win back the confidence of parliament.

If this period of time passes without a new government being formed, parliament would be dissolved and a minimum of 25 working days would pass before an election is held.

Corbyn will need around 326 votes in order to secure a majority. This number can fluctuate slightly, depending on how many MPs are sitting in the house. For example it could be reduced to 322, as Sinn Fein rarely take up their allocated seven seats. The total number of MPs in the House of Commons is 650.

Today's vote of no confidence is a different procedure to what happened in 2017 with the snap election, where more than two thirds of the entire house were required to vote in favour of calling an election as opposed to a no confidence vote.

When will it happen?

Leader of the commons Andrea Leadsom has said the entire day will be dedicated to the no confidence vote today.

This means that from Prime Minister's Questions onwards, which ends at around 12:45pm, the debate will held in the House of Commons until 7pm.

A vote will follow immediately afterwards, with the results will be revealed shortly thereafter.

What will the outcome be?

Most ministers do not believe the Labour party will win the no confidence vote tonight.

Despite a significant proportion of Tories not backing May's deal, the majority of Conservatives do not believe now is the time for a general election. As such, it is expected that most of them will support the Prime Minister tonight.

The DUP, which props up May's majority in parliament, has said it will support the PM despite also voting against the draft agreement.

The pro-Brexit European Research Group, led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, has also said it will support May tonight.

As a result, it is not expected that Corbyn will be able to command enough votes to force May out.

So what comes next?

May will begin to source support for a so-called Plan B, asking for contributions from both sides of parliament "in a constructive spirit".

May warned MPs yesterday that any proposals must be "genuinely negotiable and have sufficient support in this house", as there are few chances left to create a draft withdrawal agreement that the EU might accept.

The Prime Minister has until Monday to present a new motion to parliament.