SNP and LibDems demand no confidence vote against the government after Jeremy Corbyn bottled calling one
OPPOSITION parties piled fresh pressure on Jeremy Corbyn tonight by formally tabling a no confidence vote in the Government.
The Labour leader was attacked by all parties after he chickened out of his bid to unseat Theresa May.
This evening the SNP, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Greens laid down the gauntlet to Labour by launching their own bid to bring down the Government.
Only a no confidence motion tabled by the official leader of the opposition automatically gets allotted time for debate and a vote in the Commons.
It is up to the Government to decide whether to grant the motion from the smaller opposition parties time - which is highly unlikely.
If the PM was to lose a vote of no confidence in the Commons it would trigger a General Election.
The move from the opposition parties is designed to heap pressure on Mr Corbyn to call the no confidence vote himself because he has said he will only back a second Brexit referendum if he fails to force a General Election.
But last night Labour sources said it hadn’t changed the party’s position to wait until January when the PM’s doomed Brexit vote returns to the Commons.
Attacking Mr Corbyn’s lack of action, SNP leader Ian Blackford said: “By tabling our motion on Tuesday evening, we hope to be afforded time by the UK government to debate it before Parliament closes for the Christmas recess.
“It is clear the Prime Minister’s tactic has been to run down the clock and deprive parliament of any alternative to her deal.
"Jeremy Corbyn seems happy to let her - presumably to avoid having to make a decision on a second EU referendum. This is not acceptable and people deserve better.
“We want this motion to succeed but if it doesn’t, Labour’s only excuse for not backing a second referendum will be removed.
"We can then all get on with building a majority for that vote.
“Either way, if the official opposition won’t do its job, the real opposition will.”
It comes after Mrs May called the Labour leader’s bluff over his threat to call a no confidence vote but he decided not to go ahead with the motion before Christmas.
Yesterday Mr Corbyn was even lambasted by his own MPs for failing to call a vote of no confidence.
One Labour MP said party was in “absolute despair,” while another told the Financial Times: “It’s shambolic - fiddling while Rome burns.”
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Gerraint Davies saying the failure to stop Brexit would leave Britain “walking slowly along the road to fascism” and Chris Leslie branded Mr Corbyn’s Brexit position a “pantomime”.
Tory MP James Heappey said Mr Corbyn was either “inept or invertebrate” over his dithering.
Mr Corbyn’s official line is to judge a no confidence vote “day by day” in order to keep the Government on tenterhooks. A spokesman said:
“It’s a matter of when not if.”
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