Why won’t MPs be voting on a Final Say referendum this week?

As things stand, there are currently 283 MPs who support a second referendum, which means there are 355 against. So it makes sense for supporters of giving the people another vote on Brexit to bide their time

And doesn’t Jeremy Corbyn? (Angela Christofilou/The Independent)

This may be the crunch week for Brexit, although there are two more weeks after it until Friday 29 March, when we are supposed to leave the EU under Article 50 of the Treaty.

The fixed point is that there will be a vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday on the latest version of the prime minister’s deal.

It will be a vote on a motion to approve the withdrawal agreement, the political declaration on the future relationship with the EU, and presumably a codicil on the temporary nature of the guarantee of an open border in Ireland.

The government motion gives MPs the chance to table amendments, which are voted on first. However, the most significant amendment, for a referendum on the deal, is not going to be tabled by its advocates, the Labour MPs Phil Wilson and Peter Kyle, despite having attracted widespread cross-party support.

They have been persuaded that their amendment would distract from efforts by supporters of a new referendum to defeat Theresa May’s deal.

Alastair Campbell, one of the leading advocates of a Final Say referendum, says that Tuesday “must belong to May being made to see her deal will not – and cannot – fly”.

The decisive factor in withdrawing the amendment, though, was probably the reluctance of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, to commit to whipping his MPs to back it. He and John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, had already persuaded Wilson and Kyle to remove any reference in the draft amendment to “approving” the government’s deal – even on condition of a referendum.

Even if the Labour leadership supported it, however, a referendum amendment is almost certain to lose. I estimate that there are currently 283 MPs who support a second referendum, which means there are 355 against. So it makes sense for Wilson and Kyle to bide their time.

Other amendments are likely to be tabled by other MPs on Tuesday, and it may be that some of them will call for a new referendum. Vince Cable, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has recently tabled mischievous amendments calling for “a public vote” to Corbyn’s amendments, in an attempt to embarrass the Labour leader for failing to press the policy.

But such an amendment is unlikely to be selected by John Bercow, the speaker, who chooses which amendments should be put to the vote, depending on the level of support they have in the Commons.

So there will probably be no vote on the principle of another referendum on Tuesday, but, if the prime minister’s deal is defeated, there will be further votes and further chances for Wilson and Kyle to table their amendment. As Kyle said today: “We’re ready to go when the moment for compromise emerges.”

If the deal is defeated and the House of Commons votes to delay Brexit, which would be the likely next step, then a referendum will become a real possibility, and Wilson and Kyle’s moment may have arrived.

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