How Europe's newspapers reported May's latest Brexit humiliation: 'The Tories are decomposing'

Publications say vote opens door to delay Britain's departure from EU

European newspapers have gone big on Theresa May‘s failure to win a second Brexit vote, suggesting it opens the door to delaying Britain’s exit from the EU.

The prime minister’s defeat was covered extensively on the continent, with half of the front page of France’s Liberation newspaper given to a picture of Ms May with the caption: “Back to square one.”

“Is it the end? The end of Brexit but above all the end of Theresa May?” the newspaper asked in its analysis.

The Netherlands’ NRC said: “May’s new defeat is so big that there is no negotiator left in Brussels who still believes that concessions to her will yield a majority in the House of Commons.”

Meanwhile, French newspaper Le Monde also featured Ms May’s defeat on its front page, and concluded: “Metaphorical or not, Theresa May’s loss of voice on Tuesday symbolised the state of a country deemed pragmatic but remaining without a voice for failing to compromise with its neighbours.”

The verdict from Belgium’s De Standaard​’s said: “Going down fighting was the only thing that remained for May. How very British... It is unclear what this therapeutic stubbornness is supposed to bring.”

Spain’s El Mundo claimed Britain is “perhaps the European state where populism has most corrosively affected traditional parties”.

“While Labour has moved towards Jeremy Corbyn’s Eurosceptic, far-left position, the Tories have entered into a process of internal decomposition,” it added.

Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung said the prime minister had “failed again with her Brexit deal”.

“The backstop solution has become a kind of fetish for hardliners,” it said. “On the other hand, May has not even come up with with any good arguments.”

Spain’s El Pais said the government’s defeat opens the door to delaying Brexit, while Philippe Lamberts, a member of the European Parliament’s Brexit steering group, told Germany’s Der Spiegel only two realistic options remained: “No deal or no Brexit.”