It's possible Labor will take over if May loses her confidence vote. But Corbyn's current position has been that he'd pursue Brexit with unicorn promises, rather than cancel the whole thing like his constituents want him to do. So it's doubtful that Labor would revoke article 50.

Just spitballing here... Methinks May will win her confidence vote tomorrow. From there, the consensus seems to be to steer towards a peoples' vote -- aka a new referendum -- in spite of May being hostile to that idea. But don't rule out some back and forth with the EU. May has a long way to go to win a rerun of this vote, but if her premiership is anything to go by she's resilient, and the GBP lost around 10% against the USD and EUR within minutes of the Commons vote. (Edit: the GDP seems to have bounced back since.)

As an aside, I'm no fan of May, and the referendum campaign was full of lies and manipulation, but methinks May actually has merit in raising that a peoples' vote would not be good for the legitimacy of and trust in politicians and institutions. After all, what's the point of organizing a referendum and then electing representatives that don't deliver. And what's the point of organizing referendums if the powers that be will continue to ask the question again and again until constituents give the expected answer?

In the old days (pre 2011) the government would fall, and we'd be on the way to an election if Labour couldn't organise a minority government (and I seem to remember that was made subtly more difficult in the Act). See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18914244

(That thread should probably be merged with this one)

Governments are now 5 years, and surprisingly difficult to interrupt early thanks to the LibDem's Act during the coalition. Essentially the sitting party needs to commit suicide.

The Tory manifesto promised to abolish the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. Funny they don't seem to see that as a priority at the moment! :D

There's a confidence motion tomorrow evening at 7PM GMT. My understanding is, if the government loses a general election is triggered which takes a couple of months. So a new government could be in place before March 29th. However, I think if a general election was to happen then all sides would agree to ask for an extension to Article 50 and allow a few extra months for the new government to decide what to do. Another caveat to that: one manifest pledge in the election may be a 2nd referendum. If that party won then the 2nd ref would become the focus.

The existing government would have to lose the confidence of a majority of the members of the House of Commons. Then there could be an election, and if Labour won that election, they could then take over. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motions_of_no_confidence_in_th...)

So it's conceivable, but not without Labour managing to jump through a fair number of constitutional hoops first.

Problem is: many labour MPs are from hard-brexit districts. Same thing for conservative MPs.

In fact, the problem is that the electoral map of the UK is more hard-brexit than the popular vote, while the MPs from hard-brexit districts are mostly remainers. Remainer MPs from hard-brexit districts have contradictory and irreconcilable motivations: they want the UK to remain in the EU, but they want to remain MPs. If at the end of the day the UK does not exit the EU, those MPs will lose their seats -- that's a lose-lose for them. If the UK manages to exit the EU, those MPs have a fighting chance to be reelected.

So right now Parliament wants to rescind the Article 50 invocation, but can't bring itself to say so. The best they can do without massive upheaval in the next general election is to either order a second referendum, or request a delay in exiting. And those two options only if a) the Speaker allows them (he has been allowing remainer motions that the parliamentarian has ruled out of order, so the Speaker might indeed continue to do so), b) the PM accedes or c) Parliament impeaches her. (c) hasn't happened in centuries, and (b) might not happen (but I wouldn't hazard a prediction). A successful vote of no confidence would not work: first there would have to be a new general election and a new government, which might not yield a remain result (the electoral map is hard for brexit).

Hope that makes the situation clearer, but! I am not a subject of the crown, so take this with a lot of salt.

The Labour party (at least it's leadership if not its MPs) are as pro-Brexit as the current government so even if we had another general election and Labour won (which seems unlikely) nothing would fundamentally change.

Isn't the labor party also against revoking article 50? Corbyn at least? I thought it was only the liberal party that has been consistent in arguing for revoking it.