Here are the answers Britons have been searching for in the build-up to the key vote in Parliament.
As MPs debate Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement ahead of a vote in Parliament, the British public has been looking for answers online.
Here are the most-Googled questions ahead of the crucial vote on Tuesday evening.
1. What time is the Brexit vote?
Theresa May will wrap up five days of debate on her Withdrawal Agreement in the House of Commons with a concluding statement at the Despatch Box at around 6.30pm.
Voting is likely to begin at 7pm, starting with four amendments and culminating in the meaningful vote itself.
The process of voting on each amendment takes around 15 minutes, so the final result is expected around 8.15-8.30pm.
2. What is the backstop?
The backstop arrangement outlined in the Prime Minister’s deal would create a single EU-UK customs area to ensure there is no hard border on the island of Ireland.
This means the UK would continue to follow the EU’s tariffs and rules on customs, avoiding the need for checks between the EU and UK – including Northern Ireland and the Republic – until a new relationship is decided.
Northern Ireland would need to follow some of the EU’s single market rules, including laws on goods, agricultural production, veterinary controls and state aid rules.
It is this point that has led many – including Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party and a number of Conservative backbenchers – to oppose the deal.
3. What are the Brexit amendments?
MPs proposed 13 amendments to the Prime Minister’s deal over the course of the debate and Speaker John Bercow revealed four will be put to the vote on Tuesday evening.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s amendment, backed by his front bench, dismisses Mrs May’s deal outright, instead calling on the Government to “pursue every option” to stop the UK leaving the EU without a deal. The Lib Dems added their own amendment to Mr Corbyn’s proposal, naming a second referendum as one of the options, but this was not selected for debate by the Speaker.
An amendment from the SNP leader in the Commons, Ian Blackford, calls on the UK Government to “respect the will” of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly by scrapping the Brexit deal as it is “damaging for Scotland, Wales and the nations and regions of the UK as a whole”. Instead it demands an extension to Article 50 to give the UK more time to agree a course of action.
Senior Tory Brexiter Sir Edward Leigh’s amendment says the Government should tear up the Withdrawal Agreement if the EU does not agree to end the backstop by the end of 2021.
The final amendment, tabled by Conservative Leaver John Baron, will only be debated if the Leigh proposals fail. It seeks to give the UK power to terminate the backstop without permission from the EU.
4. What is Theresa May’s Brexit deal?
The 585-page Withdrawal Agreement text will provide the basis of a legally binding treaty. It covers the future rights of EU citizens living in the UK and UK nationals in the EU, the £39 billion the UK owes in promised contributions, and protocols on Gibraltar and UK sovereign base areas in Cyprus.
It also provides for a transition period after the UK leaves the EU in March, running to the end of 2020, with the option of a one-off extension if more time is needed to conclude an agreement on the future relationship.
Crucially it also covers the backstop, intended to ensure there is no return to the hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic if negotiations on the future relationship have not been completed.
5. How will my MP vote on the Brexit deal?
Every MP from the SNP, Lib Dems, DUP, Plaid Cymru and Green Party is expected to vote against the deal, as well as most Labour MPs. Labour members who have indicated they will vote with the Government include Kevin Barron, Jim Fitzpatrick and John Mann.
Former Labour minister Frank Field and ex-Lib Dem MP Stephen Lloyd, both sitting as independents, have said they will back the deal.
At least 81 Conservative MPs have recently said publicly that they plan to vote against the deal and some estimates put total rebel numbers as high as 113, pushing the total potential vote against the deal beyond the 400 mark.
With 650 MPs in the Commons – of whom the Speaker, his deputies and the seven Sinn Fein MPs do not cast a vote – this puts Mrs May’s possible tally at around 240-250, low enough to break historic records for the worst Government defeat of modern times.
The PM and her whips have been working through the day to bring that number down and it is always possible that critics of the deal will have a last-minute change of mind.
6. What is happening with Brexit?
After more than a year of negotiations, Mrs May presented her EU Withdrawal Bill to Parliament in November but it was immediately dismissed by hard Brexiteers within her own party, leading to a string of Cabinet resignations.
Hours before Parliament was due to vote on the deal in December, sensing a heavy defeat, the PM delayed the vote and returned to Brussels to seek reassurances about its implications.
After surviving a vote of no-confidence from her own party, Mrs May pushed the vote back to January 15 but she is still expected to lose heavily.
7. How many days until Brexit?
As of Tuesday January 15, there are 73 days to go until Britain is due to leave the EU, on March 29.
8. Is the UK stockpiling food for Brexit?
Some businesses and families have said they are stockpiling food as a precaution for a no-deal scenario in which it takes a lot longer for cargo to come through customs at the UK border.
Tesco and Marks & Spencer, as well as companies like Premier Foods – which owns Bisto, Mr Kipling and Majestic Wine – have announced plans for stockpiling.
Quick-thinking entrepreneurs are selling so-called Brexit survival kits of freeze-dried food for hundreds of pounds, although a Government spokesman said there was “no need” to stockpile items in the box, according to the BBC.
In December, official documents showed the Government was drawing up plans to avoid food shortages in hospitals, although the full extent of Government plans are not known.
9. How many people voted for Brexit?
A little over 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, compared with just over 16.1 million who voted to remain.
Turnout was 33.6 million, meaning 52% of those taking part voted to leave.
10. What happens if there is a no-deal Brexit?
A no-deal situation arises if the UK quits the EU without an agreement covering issues like the Irish border, expats’ rights in Europe, a future trade deal or customs and border checks.
Predictions about the seriousness of leaving the EU without a deal vary, but separate assessments from Whitehall and the Bank of England in November painted a grim picture of the impact of a no-deal Brexit on the UK economy.
The Bank warned Britain could be tipped into a recession worse than the financial crash, with an 8% cut in GDP, unemployment surging by as much as 7.5% and house prices falling by almost a third.
A cross-Government analysis found the UK economy would be 9.3% smaller after 15 years if Britain leaves without a deal.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Two Kansas women who went missing on a trip to pick up children for a birthday party two weeks ago were killed over a custody dispute involving a small group of anti-government Oklahomans who called themselves “God's Misfits,” authorities said Monday.
Their vehicle was found along a rural Oklahoma highway just south of the state line, with ample evidence of a bloody confrontation, setting off a two-week effort to secure the children's safety while searching for the women and avoiding more violence. Ultimately, their bodies were found a day after four suspects were arrested without incident on charges of kidnapping and murder, authorities said.
Veronica Butler, 27, and Jilian Kelley, 39, of Hugoton, Kansas, had arranged with the grandmother of Butler's two children to meet at a highway intersection and pick up the 6- and 8-year-old for the March 30 birthday party in Kansas. Butler's family found the vehicle just a few miles from the meet-up spot after the women missed the party.
“This case did not end the way we had hoped. It’s certainly been a tragedy for everyone involved,” Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation Director Aungela Spurlock said.
The suspects arrested Saturday include 54-year-old Tifany Adams, who was the children's grandmother, and three others who call themselves “God’s Misfits,” according to their arrest affidavits. Adams, 43-year-old Tad Bert Cullum, 50-year-old Cole Earl Twombly and 44-year-old Cora Twombly are charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree.
The affidavits say Butler was in a “problematic custody battle” with Adams. Her son, the father of Butler’s two children, was in a rehabilitation facility in Oklahoma City, hours away from Guymon, and Butler was allowed only supervised visits each Saturday. Kelley, the wife of a pastor in Hugoton, was Butler's court-authorized choice to supervise visitations.
As investigators searched for the women, Adams told them she had left the children in the care of another couple on the morning of March 30; the couple was part of God's Misfits, her arrest affidavit said.
It was a gruesome scene that law enforcement encountered.
“Blood was found on the roadway and the edge of the roadway. Butler’s glasses were also found in the roadway south of the vehicle, near a broken hammer. A pistol magazine was found inside Kelley’s purse at the scene, but no pistol was found,” one of the affidavits said.
A teenage witness told authorities that Cora Twombly said that she and her husband Cole Twombly blocked the road to stop Butler and Kelley and divert them to where Adams, her boyfriend Cullum and another person were waiting for them. The teen asked why Kelley had to die and was told that “she wasn’t innocent either” because she supported Butler,” the affidavit said.
The affidavit also said that according to Cora Twombly, at one point "the plan was to throw an an anvil through Butler’s windshield while driving, making it look like an accident because anvils regularly fall off of work vehicles.
Authorities revealed no details at Monday’s news conference about where the bodies were found, but the affidavits say pre-paid phones bought by Tifany Adams stopped transmitting that morning not far from the crime scene, in the vicinity of a pasture rented by Tad Cullum, where “a hole had been dug and filled back in and then covered with hay.” The property's owner said he saw Cullum using heavy equipment to dig the hole on March 29.
The issue was that Butler had asked the court for more time with her children, and Butler’s attorney told investigators that her request for unsupervised visitation was likely to be granted at a hearing in April, the affidavit said.
The Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals issued a ruling in 2022 directing a trial court to enter a shared custody arrangement.
“We acknowledge both of these very young and immature parents presented conflicting testimony about the other party’s inappropriate behavior and choices,” the appellate court wrote, but said “the children are nurtured and comforted by Mother” and ”happy and excited to be with Father."
On March 23, with a court date looming, Adams bought five stun guns at a store in Guymon, according to the affidavit.
It wasn’t entirely clear where the children were at throughout the crime. Authorities said the affidavits weren't unsealed until Monday, with all the suspects in custody, in part to protect them.
”The reason they were filed under seal was to protect our law enforcement officers and to try to keep the children out of harm’s way," said District Attorney George Leach III. "We were successful. No shots were fired and the children were kept out of harm’s way.”
All four suspects are being held without bond in the Texas County Jail and are scheduled to make an initial court appearance Wednesday morning, said Texas County Court Clerk Renee Ellis. Court records don’t indicate whether any have an attorney who could speak on their behalf.
Relatives of Tad Cullum, Cole Twombly and Cora Twombly didn’t not immediately return phone messages from The Associated Press seeking comment. Tifany Adams’ stepmother, Elise Adams, said she didn’t know if she had a lawyer and had no information on her arrest.
“I don’t know a thing about her business,” Elise Adams said. “All I can tell you about her is she was a wonderful step-daughter to me.”
OSBI spokesman Hunter McKee said Butler and Kelley are dead, and that the four defendants were responsible for the women going missing, but would not confirm that the bodies found were identified as the missing Kansas women, pending a report from Medical Examiner’s Office.
“This case is tragic," McKee said. "You have two people who are dead and four people who committed an absolutely brutal crime.”
Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas..
This booking photo provided by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation shows Cora Twombly. On Saturday, April 13, 2024, Oklahoma authorities said they arrested and charged four people, including Twombly, with murder and kidnapping over the weekend in connection with the disappearances of Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley. (Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation via AP)
This booking photo provided by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation shows Cole Earl Twombly. On Saturday, April 13, 2024, Oklahoma authorities said they arrested and charged four people, including Twombly, with murder and kidnapping over the weekend in connection with the disappearances of Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley. (Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation via AP)
This booking photo provided by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation shows Tad Bert Cullum. On Saturday, April 13, 2024, Oklahoma authorities said they arrested and charged four people, including Cullum, with murder and kidnapping over the weekend in connection with the disappearances of Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley. (Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation via AP)
This booking photo provided by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation shows Tifany Machel Adams. On Saturday, April 13, 2024, Oklahoma authorities said they arrested and charged four people, including Adams, with murder and kidnapping over the weekend in connection with the disappearances of Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley. (Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation via AP)
This combination of booking photo provided by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation shows Tad Bert Cullum, top left, Cora Twombly, top right, Tifany Machel Adams, bottom left, and Cole Earl Twombly, bottom right. On Saturday, April 13, 2024, Oklahoma authorities said they arrested and charged these four people with murder and kidnapping over the weekend in connection with the disappearances of Veronica Butler and Jilian Kelley. (Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation via AP)
FILE - This combination photo shows Veronica Butler, left, and Jilian Kelley, right. On Saturday, April 13, 2024, Oklahoma authorities said they arrested and charged four people with murder and kidnapping over the weekend in connection with the disappearances of the two Oklahoma women. (Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation via AP, File)
