Brexiteers Never Wanted Brexit to Begin With.

Jacob Rees-Mogg poses for a photograph in central
London on Oct. 18, 2018.
(Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images)

History will show that the biggest obstacle to Brexit was its most fervent supporters. That’s no accident.

After a tumultuous two and a half years, the great can-kicking of parliamentary politics was meant to come to an end Tuesday evening. After months of panic and delay, with little more than two weeks to go before Britain was set to leave the European Union, a withdrawal agreement with the approval of 27 EU nations was finally presented to the British Parliament. “Today is the day,” Prime Minister Theresa May reportedly told her cabinet. “Let’s get this done.”

But, of course, Brexit blundered on. The final tally was stark: 242 for, 391 against. Many rank-and-file Conservative members of Parliament joined their colleagues to the right and left—Labour, the Scottish National Party, the Independent Group, and the Liberal Democrats—in voting down the Brexit deal. Among them was the vast majority of the European Research Group (ERG), the large and powerful far-right Tory bloc. Parliament will now head to a series of votes, on Wednesday and Thursday, to stave off a no deal and delay Brexit and, possibly, open a Pandora’s box that may oust May, trigger a general election, and invite a second referendum. In a parliament where every meaningful vote seems to fail, this one—the dramatic reversal of the Brexiteers’ fortune—seems peculiarly likely to pass. More peculiarly still, it is an outcome that the fervent Brexit supporters of the ERG will have indirectly helped produce.

By Stephen Paduano.

Full story at Foreign Policy.