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Theresa May has suffered another humiliating defeat, after her stripped-down Brexit deal was rejected for a third time by MPs. The vote, which comes on the same day Britain was originally meant to leave the bloc, illustrates the depth of the three-year political crisis the country is going through. A long extension or a no deal Brexit on April 12 are now the most likely outcomes.

Thousands of furious Brexiteers have taken to the streets to voice their anger at the political state of affairs. Eurosceptics now fear that the result of the 2016 referendum could be ignored. What they may find more worrying still, is that other countries in Europe have had the experience of voting on a European Union issue twice after rejecting the bloc's position at the first time of asking. In 2005, the European Constitution was rejected in popular referendums in France and the Netherlands.

THE EU put together a secret plan to force Ireland to vote again on the rejected Lisbon Treaty

Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker

However, in 2009, the EU agreed to the Lisbon Treaty which, according to analysis at the time by London think tank Open Europe, had 96 percent of the text included in the Constitutional Treaty. The only country that put the Lisbon Treaty to a popular referendum was Ireland and, in June 2008, the Irish people strongly rejected it. However, Ireland's support was vital because the Lisbon Treaty could not have come into force across the EU until all 27 countries had ratified it. According to 2008 reports, Brussels then penned a secret plan to force the country to vote again. In an explosive leaked document entitled "The Solution to the Irish Problem", obtained by media organisations, EU officials wrote how the bloc should have pushed Ireland into re-running its referendum, opening the way for the treaty to come into force the following year. Europe offered Dublin a few promises, in a bid to ensure its people voted in favour of the treaty.

In June 2008, the Irish people strongly rejected it the Lisbon Treaty

Gordon Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty without holding a referendum