Boris Johnson’s bittersweet Brexit victory

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Tuesday evening’s votes in the House of Commons were a bittersweet victory for Boris Johnson. For the first time, MPs voted for a resolution to Brexit: a majority of 30 supported the prime minister’s Brexit deal, albeit in principle. This is a significant moment.

But straight after, the Commons rejected the Johnson government’s speedy timetable for putting the deal into law by 16 votes. The Brexit process is now in limbo as Downing Street waits for the EU to answer the request for another extension. How MPs voted offers an indication of how the government might eventually pass a Brexit deal.

As expected, the whole of the Conservative parliamentary party supported both the second reading of Mr Johnson’s deal and the programme motion, which would have seen the deal pass the Commons by the end of this week. The Tory whips will be pleased that there were no rebels within their own ranks.

The government had some success with the independent Conservatives, a group of MPs who were in the Tory party before losing the whip — mostly for backing legislation last month to avert a no-deal Brexit. Among these parliamentarians, 19 backed Mr Johnson’s deal in principle, including former cabinet ministers Ken Clarke, Amber Rudd and David Gauke.

Three former Conservative ministers, who are in favour of a second referendum, did not support the deal: Dominic Grieve, Justine Greening and Guto Bebb. It is unlikely that they will support any other course except another plebiscite.

But the government was less successful in persuading the independent Conservatives to support his timetable for passing the deal, which was widely criticised through the Commons debate on Tuesday afternoon. Nine independent Conservatives voted against Mr Johnson’s timetable, including Mr Clarke, Rory Stewart and Philip Hammond. Had these gone the other way, Mr Johnson would have prevailed on both counts.

While the majority of Labour party opposed the government consistently — 19 MPs rebelled to support Mr Johnson’s deal in principle. As well as the 11 parliamentarians identified by the Financial Times’ analysis prior to the vote, a further eight backed the government, including Lisa Nandy.†

The majority of these MPs, however, did not support the government on the timetable for implementing the deal, having expressed concerns they would not be able to adequately scrutinise the legislation. Only five Labour parliamentarians backed Mr Johnson on the programme motion — Kevin Barron, Jim Fitzpatrick, Kate Hoey and John Mann — while another three abstained. This may pose a challenge for the prime minister when he tries to pass the deal.

In total, there were 21 MPs, a mixture of Labour and Conservative members, who backed Mr Johnson’s deal in principle but did not back the schedule for passing it. Now it is over to the government to persuade MPs to back its renewed timetable whenever it is decided.

Elsewhere the opposition was as expected. The Democratic Unionist party, notionally Mr Johnson’s governing partners, voted against both the Brexit agreement and the programme motion in protest the deal. Meanwhile all of the political parties opposed to Brexit voted consistently down party lines. The Scottish National party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, the Independent Group for Change and the Green party’s sole MP all opposed the prime minister.