Theresa May to offer MPs ‘multiple choice’ option over Brexit to push her exit deal through Parliament

THERESA May may offer MPs a “multiple choice vote” over Brexit to push her deal through Parliament, after cross-party talks with Labour collapsed.

The besieged Prime Minister is set to make one final attempt to get her deal through when she introduces the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in the Commons in the first full week of June.

May is pondering whether to give MPS a free vote on the type of long-term relationship Britain should have with the bloc, reports The Times.

Plans have apparently been drawn up at Downing Street to use a preferential voting system.

This would result in politicians ranking different options for a customs deal with the EU in order of preference.

The Evening Standard was shown a leaked memo which said that the PM offered Labour a preferential vote system, in which MPs would rank options for customs arrangements from one through to four.

The Times explains that one option would be for a full, permanent customs union.

Another is for a customs union for goods, while the third choice is for a temporary full arrangement lasting until the next general election.

The course of action with the least number of votes would be eliminated, with second preferences reallocated to help decide the way forward.

In regards to holding a second referendum, MPs would be offered a free vote, using a simple yes or no format, to decide whether to put the deal to another poll.

Today, opposition Labour Party’s Brexit spokesman, Sir Keir Starmer, said that the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement Bill needs to include another public vote when it is presented to lawmakers again next month.

May’s Brexit deal has failed to get parliament’s approval three times.

The Labour Party and rebels within the PM’s Conservative Party have said they plan to oppose the bill – legislation enacting the deal – when it goes back before parliament next month.

Starmer told BBC radio: “The government ought to seriously consider putting a public vote on the face of the bill to break the impasse.

“But what we can’t do is just keep on buying another week at a time, which is what the prime minister’s been doing for months.”

May has publicly opposed holding a second public vote.

She has blamed Labour’s civil war over a second referendum as Jeremy Corbyn ended cross-party Brexit talks.

The PM and her senior Ministers ripped into Starmer as Labour pulled the plug on six weeks of negotiations.