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Brexit threw politics into unpredictable chaos. The government was defeated by an unparalleled majority of 230 — 432 to 202 — on the withdrawal agreement it had negotiated with the EU. The result was greeted by cheers from demonstrators outside the House, both those in favour and those against Brexit. Labour tabled a motion of no confidence for the following day. Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said in the House after the vote: ‘The House has spoken and this government will listen.’ She said she would talk to senior parliamentarians and that the government would return to the House on Monday with proposals. This arrangement was in line with a business amendment by Dominic Grieve that the Speaker had allowed the week before. The Speaker’s decision had contradicted precedent and the advice of the Commons clerks.
The immediate response to the government defeat was for most people to seek the outcome they had sought before: a second referendum, a Brexit without an agreement or a renegotiated agreement. Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, hoped that Brexit would be reversed, tweeting: ‘If a deal is impossible, and no one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?’ Sir Andy Murray wept as he explained for the cameras that his chronic hip injuries meant his tennis career must end this year.
The Welsh were found to be the nation in western Europe with the highest proportion in jail. West Midlands Police had failed to record 16,600 violent crimes a year, 22 per cent of the total, according to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary. Jail sentences of less than six months could be abolished, allowing 30,000 fewer prisoners to burden the system, the Prisons Minister Rory Stewart suggested.
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