Brexit: A historic loss, Labour tables no-confidence vote – Nordea Markets

Morten Lund, analyst at Nordea Markets, points out that in the UK, the House of Commons rejected Theresa May’s Brexit deal in a historic loss with the opposition calling for a no-confidence motion in the government, opening the door for a general election.

Key Quotes

“As widely expected, the House of Commons decided to reject Theresa May’s Brexit deal. The vote failed with a significant margin of 230, as 432 MPs voted against the deal and 202 MPs supported it. This is the biggest defeat in history to a British government. Noticeably, 118 from the Conservatives rebelled against official party policy.”

“Following the result announcement, the opposition leader from the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, decided to call a no-confidence motion in the government.”

“In terms of the outcome of the no-confidence vote, we expect Theresa May and the government to win. Our conviction is based on the fact that it would require Conservative MPs to bring down the government, which we see little appetite for. Thus, recent polls suggest that many Tory MPs would lose their seats, and Labour may even become the biggest party (polls indicate a close race between the Conservatives and Labour. In this regard, Conservative MPs will probably also - with fear - still have a fresh memory of the poor election result in 2017.”