DEBATE: After Tuesday’s amendments, is a no-deal Brexit actually more likely now?

After Tuesday’s amendments, is a no-deal Brexit actually more likely now?

John Oxley, a Conservative commentator, says YES.

The UK leaves the EU by operation of law at 11pm on 29 March. No deal is the default. The insipid amendment “rejecting” that outcome has no force. Only an agreement with the EU or the revocation or extension of Article 50 can stop it.

Defeating the opposition amendments showed that the Commons will not take on the referendum result. Doing so would precipitate a constitutional and democratic crisis which no one in Westminster has the political capital to push through.

The Prime Minister has been sent back to Brussels with a mandate to negotiate anew. The EU27, as a bloc and as individual states, are unwilling to reopen negotiation, especially around the backstop.

Even then, it is hard to imagine Theresa May returning with a deal that will unite the Tory party, leaving her reliant on Labour votes to get it through. Those votes may never come.

Tuesday night narrowed the options, rather than widening them. Little has changed.

Olivia Utley, deputy editor at TheArticle, says NO.

When Theresa May’s deal was defeated by 432 votes to 202 earlier this month, it seemed impossible that our politicians would ever agree on how to Brexit.

Parliament had comprehensively flattened a deal which had been two and a half years in the making, and – with only three months to go until Brexit day – it felt as though no deal (the legal default) was unavoidable.

Tuesday’s votes change all that – and not just because parliament explicitly rejected a no-deal outcome (although that doesn’t hurt). By giving a majority to the Brady amendment, which states that the backstop must be replaced with an “alternative solution”, MPs made it clear that they are happy to back a deal, as long as that deal doesn’t involve annexing Northern Ireland.

The EU wouldn’t risk offering concessions when it seemed unlikely that Britain would accept them. But now parliament has shown that it is willing to compromise, subject to one specific issue, the EU has leeway do the same – and a deal will at last be reached.