Labour and Tories in disarray after call for confidence vote

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a motion of no confidence in Theresa May yesterday, after the prime minister announced that MPs would not get a chance to vote on the government’s Brexit deal until at least mid-January.

The motion tabled by Corbyn asked MPs to declare they had “no confidence in the prime minister due to her failure to allow the House of Commons to have a meaningful vote straightaway”.

Corbyn told the House of Commons that May had led the United Kingdom into a “national crisis”, adding that it was unacceptable to force MPs to wait nearly a month to vote on the deal.

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“It’s bad – unacceptable – that we should be waiting almost a month before we have a meaningful vote on the crucial issue facing the future of this country,” Corbyn said.

However sources at No 10 told the BBC that the government would not make time for the no-confidence vote and that ministers would not “go along with silly political games”.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said that in not allowing time for the motion to be debated, Downing Street had effectively “batted the ball back to Labour to see if they have the guts to call for a vote of no confidence in the government as a whole”, which, if it were tabled, “could bring about an early general election if it is supported by a majority of MPs”.

Labour said that Downing Street was “running scared” in not allowing the vote of no confidence in May, but the Tories “hit back, saying that Labour had 'bottled it' by failing to exercise their right to force a no-confidence vote in the government”, The Guardian says.

The SNP and Liberal Democrats had indicated they would support a no-confidence motion in the government, but the DUP and Tory rebels made clear they would not support it, meaning the motion faced defeat.

The whole day may have seemed like little more than “procedural nonsense”, says Kuenssberg, but “what it suggests is that despite widespread frustration on all sides, Jeremy Corbyn is so far stopping short of taking a real shot at toppling May's administration, and is unlikely to do so unless, and until, he thinks he can win.”