British MPs fail to agree alternative Brexit plan -- live updates

Downing Street has released excerpts of what Prime Minister Theresa May told Conservative MPs this evening.

You can read what she said here:

CNN's Bianca Nobilo is inside the House of Parliament in Westminster, where Conservative MP, Simon Hart, has gone into more detail about what happened inside the meeting.

“She has said that she will not stay through to the next phase of negotiations. If they back the deal she will go.

“No timescale was talked about or given. The implication was if she gets her deal through that will kick start the process to find a new leader almost immediately. It was a respectful atmosphere. She was as animated as I’d ever seen her at committee. She was passionate but not emotional. We are all traumatized at this point by these negotiations.”

Lawmakers are beginning to react to the news that Prime Minister Theresa May told Conservative MPs that she would step down once her Brexit deal is delivered.

Anna Soubry, who recently left the party to join a breakaway cross-party bloc known as the Independent Group, tweeted that it was "shameful" that "hard Brexiteers will vote for the PMs "deal" not because it's good for our country and the right thing to do ... but because it gets rid of the PM."

While Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: "If Brexit ends up being forced through on the basis of a deal no one supports -- indeed a deal so bad that the PM has to promise to resign to get it through - it will make an already bad project even worse."

Another Conservative MP who attended the meeting with backbench Conservative MPs has also told Britain's Press Association that Theresa May would "not remain in post for the next phase of the [Brexit] negotiations."

James Cartlidge told PA as he left the private meeting at Westminster:

Theresa May has said that she will stand down as prime minister once Brexit has been delivered, according to a Conservative Party lawmaker in a meeting with her.

“She will not be in charge for the next phase,” she told Conservative MPs.

She did not give a date for her departure.

Prime Minister Theresa May has just walked into the committee room in the House of Commons where she will address her backbench Conservative MPs. CNN's Bianca Nobilo is in the committee-room corridor in the House of Commons and says she looked "sprightly" but didn't answer reporters' questions. There was some "muted" banging on tables to welcome her as she entered, Nobilo said.

Some of her MPs have said they want her to set out a timetable for leaving the post of Prime Minister as the price of their support. There have been no indications, however, that she is prepared to be as explicit as that.

The House of Commons has tweeted a video of Speaker John Bercow explaining why lawmakers often "bob" up and down during debates in parliament.

"Bobbing up and down by Members in the Chamber is analogous to a school student putting his or her hand up in class," Bercow explains. "It's a silent means of signally to the Speaker."

Theresa May's Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay has told parliament that the government will table a motion for the House of Commons to sit on Friday.

Barclay hinted that May intends ask MPs to vote for a third time on her Brexit deal. If approved, the UK would leave the EU on May 22. The EU, when it agreed to an extension to the Brexit process last Friday, said the UK would have to leave on April 12 if it can't agree upon a deal this week.

Here's what Barclay told Parliament a short time ago:

Usually, MPs do not sit on Fridays so that they can spend time in their constituencies, attending local events and addressing local issues.

Now that the Speaker has selected the motions to be voted on later, it's a good time to over the pros and cons of each.

No deal

This is in some respects the simplest option, but in other respects will cause the biggest headache. In a no-deal scenario, the UK would immediately fall out of all EU institutions and trade according to World Trade Organization terms. It would likely lead to difficulties getting food and medicine into the UK from outside and will make travelling in and out of the country complicated.

Common Market 2.0

This is the too-clever-by-half plan, dreamed up by Labour and Conservative MPs. It would give the UK access to the EU's Single Market via the European Free Trade Association, but the country would remain outside the Customs Union. This is clever because it avoids a hit to the services industry, allows the UK to trade with European nations while retaining control of its international trade policy.

The problem is, it doesn't provide a sufficient answer to the Irish border question. While the plan says that a customs arrangement could resolve this issue, such an agreement is unprecedented among EFTA members. That could make the plan a non-starter.

EFTA and EEA

This plan is not a million miles from the Common Market 2.0 approach, but rules out any customs union with the EU. That means it also doesn't satisfy the Ireland question. The plan claims that there could be some kind of alternative arrangement to the Irish backstop – the insurance policy that prevents the return of border posts in Ireland. But the backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement which, as we know, is a closed matter for the EU.

Labour's alternative plan

The main opposition Labour Party's plan for Brexit is somewhat confuse and light on detail. It calls for the UK to be closely aligned with the EU on matters such as the Single Market and says that the UK must keep up to speed with workers' rights.

Crucially, it supports a permanent customs union in which the UK has "an appropriate say on any new trade deal terms."

The appropriate amount of say any third party has had over new trade deals has been zero to date, so this might be little more than wishful thinking.

Revoking Article 50

As controversial as no deal, revoking Article 50 – the legal process by which Brexit is happening – could cause serious domestic problems for the UK. The vote to leave the EU was the largest electoral turnout in British history. Overturning that is a decision not to be taken lightly.

Confirmatory public vote

This looks like a fudge. The plan says that the UK cannot ratify any Brexit deal "unless and until they have been approved by the people of the UK in a confirmatory public ballot."

It doesn't mention remaining in the EU, which leaves this plan open to interpretation. No wonder a party with no coherent policy has instructed its MPs to back it.

Contingent preferential arrangements

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