Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit bill will most likely pass through the House of Commons without any major amendment due to Conservative Party rebels backing away from supporting proposed changes by opposition parties. The band of Conservative MPs that were expected to rebel against a hard Brexit have largely been satiated by May’s promise of a white paper, which could be published as early as Thursday.
A change of tack
Without the backing of the Conservative rebels, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP now believe that there is no chance of getting enough votes for cross-party amendments to the Brexit bill.
Instead, opposition parties are hoping to force the government to amend the bill voluntarily, with issues such as protecting the rights of EU nationals and a meaningful vote at the end of the two-year negotiation period.
Members of Parliament are scheduled to start discussing the bill today. The bill will give Theresa May a mandate to invoke article 50 to trigger the two-year exit negotiations. The House of Commons will discuss May’s Brexit bill for two days before a vote occurs, most likely, on Wednesday evening. May’s government was forced to present the Bill to the Commons after the supreme court judged May didn’t have the remit to trigger article 50 without permission of the Commons.
Last night, May asked MPs to face the decision: ‘do you support the will of the British people or not?’.
May continued: ‘The British public voted on the 23rd June last year. They voted in a referendum that was presented to them by six to one vote in parliament. The people spoke and they vote to leave the European Union. Our job as MPs is to enact that’.
If the bill passes through the House of Commons-which it likely will- more Labour front benchers are expected to resign rather than voting for May’s hard Brexit plans.
Last week, Jo Stevens resigned due to Jeremy Corbyn’s implementation of a three line whip to vote in favour of May’s Brexit plans. Stevens cited a reluctance to ‘vote against her conscious’ in her departure letter.
Theresa May intends to get the bill passed through parliament by her self-imposed deadline of the end of March.
