Reactions to vote: EU politicians consider Brexit deal dead

United Kingdom and Gibraltar European Union membership referendum

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242 to 391 votes: Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May has also lost the second vote on the EU exit treaty in the London House of Commons. The disaster did not come as a surprise in the end - but politicians from the rest of the EU still reacted with a mixture of disbelief, anger and disappointment.

The EU has done everything possible to make the exit agreement in the British parliament a majority, tweeted Michel Barnier, Brexit's chief negotiator for the EU. "The blockade can only be resolved in the UK." At the same time, the Frenchman warned that the EU's preparations for an exit without agreement were "more important than ever". EU Council President Donald Tusk also had a spokesman announce that the risk of a chaotic no-deal Brexit on March 29 has now risen "significantly".

Nobody knows how such a catastrophe can be averted. "The exit deal has died," said Elmar Brok (CDU), member of the Brexit Steering Group in the European Parliament, immediately after the vote. "The British have no position that is able to negotiate, and on that basis we can not go on."

British participation in European elections "a laugh number"

Although most observers believe it likely that the UK Parliament will rule out a no-deal Brexit on Wednesday and request the postponement of the withdrawal on Thursday. It is also likely that EU leaders will approve the renewal at their Summit on 21 and 22 March. But hardly anyone believed that it would change the situation decisively on Tuesday evening in the Strasbourg EU Parliament.

For if the delay should be longer than three months, the British would probably participate in the European elections in May. "Then they choose the Commission President and the new Commission, vote on the seven-year financial plan, decide the future of the EU and then leave," Brok said. "That seems like a joke to me."

But what should bring an extension of only three months, no one knows so well. "It's hard to believe that 150 MPs will make friends with reality within that time," said Philippe Lamberts, co-head of the Greens in the European Parliament and also a member of its Brexit body.

No favor for "Crazy in the British Tory party"

He also saw no realistic way to make the British more concessions. Surely, theoretically, there is something, added Lamberts sarcastically, "We could kindly ask the Irish Republic if it is leaving the EU with the British, which would solve the problem with the Irish-Northern Irish border." Or one could meet the Brexit hard-liners' demand to make Britain a hotbed of social and environmental dumping and not to monitor the Irish border. "Then we would have a 500-kilometer backdoor into the EU single market, which would kill it."

Although from the perspective of British enemies of the EU quite desirable - so that Britain after Brexit no longer sees a gigantic trading block, but 27 individual states. "But why," asks Lamberts, "should we cut off both feet and arms of the EU to do a favor for some crazy people in the British Tory party?"

There are now practically only two realistic options: "No deal or no Brexit." For a rejection of the EU exit, however, a new referendum would be politically necessary in Great Britain - and for that there is no majority in the British parliament. "The probability of a no-deal scenario is therefore more than 50 percent," says Lamberts. The left-wing group leader Gabi Zimmer, believes that "a chaos Brexit can hardly be avoided." "We see a parliament that decomposes itself in the party bickering."

A no-deal Brexit but "nobody can wish," said Udo Bullmann, head of the Social Democrats in the European Parliament. He advocates a second referendum. "If the parliamentarians in a century question are no longer able to decide for their people, there is in my view, only one solution: you have to ask the people."