LONDON, January 16. /TASS/. British Prime Minister Theresa May will survive the no-confidence vote but may have to step down in February if lawmakers once again reject her Brexit deal, publisher and editor of Politics First magazine Marcus Papadopoulos told TASS on Wednesday.
"Theresa May is not going to lose, every conservative MP will vote for her, will vote against no-confidence vote, including every conservative MP who voted against her deal yesterday. The Democratic Unionist Party MPs will vote in favor of the government today," he said.
According to him, "there are a number of reasons and one of them is if Conservative MPs voted in favor of Labor's no-confidence motion, that could very quickly result in snap general election and according to the opinion polls Jeremy Corbyn would win that general elections." "No Conservative MP wants to hand down the keys of Downing Street to Jeremy Corbyn," Papadopoulos added.
May’s possible resignation
The expert was also confident that Theresa May would step down as British Prime Minister no later than in mid-2019.
"May has made it very clear that her objective is not to remain as Prime Minister in the long term, her objective is to deliver Brexit and deliver a Brexit that is favorable to the UK, to the British economy," Papadopoulos said.
According to him, before submitting the bill to the parliament once again in February, the prime ministry could threaten her own party members to hold a new Brexit vote or try to make Brussels give more concessions concerning the Irish border backstop.
"If the Withdrawal Bill is defeated again in February, there could be a cabinet revolt against her and she could be kicked out of office and might be forced to resign. If that doesn’t happen, in my own view, if the she is able to deliver some sort of Brexit one way or another, she will probably step down as leader of the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister of the UK end of June and that will pave the way for the leadership election," he pointed out.
Brexit deal failure
On Tuesday, the British House of Commons voted by 432 votes to 202 to turn down the Brexit deal May had negotiated with the European Union. It is the biggest defeat ever for a sitting British government, as the deal was rejected by 230 votes. The deal needed to be approved by the British parliament to enter into force. The United Kingdom is scheduled to withdraw from the European Union on March 29, 2019, while a transition period is planned to last until the end of 2020.