LONDON, June 19 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May and her advisers were Tuesday working on a strategy as they prepare for a vote in the House of Commons in just 24 hours following a crushing defeat in the unelected House of Lords.
A vote Monday night in the Lords over the wording of a "meaningful" vote on a Brexit deal, means MPs in the House of Commons will have a final vote on the issue on Wednesday.
The former government Attorney General who paved the way for the vote in the House of Lords insisted Tuesday that rebel members of May's Conservative Party are not trying to collapse the government.
Instead back-bench MP and pro-EU politician Dominic Grieve insisted that a meaningful vote in parliament on a Brexit deal may help avoid a crisis moment.
The dilemma centers on what would happen if May and her Brexit team fail to strike a Brexit deal with the EU.
Without parliament intervention, it could lead to no-deal bring struck, the so-called cliff-edge option, critics of May's approach to Brexit claim.
Brexit supporters backing the government say if May's hands are tied by the British parliament, it is more likely to encourage Brussels to offer Britain a poor deal.
The Guardian newspaper in London quoted Grieve Tuesday as saying one of the reasons he supported a House of Lords amendment was "precisely to avoid a situation where the government would immediately collapse," insisting he did not want to collapse May's government.
Grieve said the new amendment, won in the House of Lords by a margin of 354 votes to 235, was a mechanism by which the House of Commons could express a view, without moving to a motion of no confidence in May's government, which could collapse the government.
"All of us must hope this doesn't happen. But there is a risk it will happen, and if we have no deal at the very end it is a serious crisis," Grieve said.
The new amendment, to be debated Wednesday, means ministers must update parliament by Jan. 21 if there is no prospect of a deal with the EU, and then have two weeks to return to the Commons with a statement on how the government plans to proceed. MPs would then be given a vote on whether to approve what action the government proposes to take.
The House of Lords vote came on a day a debate took place at Westminster Hall to discuss a public petition to parliament signed by more than 200,000 people calling for the abolition of the unelected House of Lords.
Conservative MP Paul Scully, who led the debate, said it called for a "Give the referendum on the abolition of the House of Lords.
The petition stated: "The House of Lords is a place of patronage where unelected and unaccountable individuals hold a disproportionate amount of influence and power which can be used to frustrate the elected representatives of the people."
He told MPs the timing of the debate was apt because at the other end of Parliament, the Lords were currently exercising "an incredible amount of influence and power over the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill", as they debated amendments rejected by the House of Lords.
There was no vote on the petition, but it demonstrates the depth of feeling on the powers of the unelected chamber in the Houses of Parliament.
