MPs prepare for third meaningful vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal

Theresa May will attempt to push her Brexit deal through parliament for a third time today – the day the UK was officially scheduled to leave the EU.

The Prime Minister will ask MPs to vote on her withdrawal agreement but not the political declaration in order to get round a ruling made by the Commons speaker John Bercow, who ruled out a third meaningful vote unless it contained "substantial changes".

May's deal has already been defeated twice; once in January by 230 votes and again in March by 149 votes.

Labour's shadow Brexit secretary, Sir Keir Starmer, said the tactic was a "desperate act" and that his party would again vote down the deal. 

"It's not part of a plan it's a desperate measure," he told the BBC. "To now cut the deal in half and present half to parliament when on 14 January the Prime Minister stood at the dispatch box and said, as the EU have said, that the withdrawal agreement and political declaration are part of the same negotiated package. The Prime Minister said you cant bank one without the other."

The EU has said it will grant Britain an extension to 22 May if MPs approve today's motion. A number of Brexiters who were previously opposed to the deal have started to swing behind the deal on the assumption it will make a long extension to Article 50, and therefore no Brexit, less likely.

If MPs don't pass part of the deal, the UK will have to ask the EU for an extension to Article 50 – the mechanism that allows the UK to leave the EU – until 12 April, but the EU has said it must have a "credible" alternative to go forward.