461 MPs have just voted for Theresa May to invoke Article 50 by the end of March. The Tory amendment to Labour’s opposition day motion passed comfortably with only 89 MPs opposing it—and Ken Clarke the only Tory amongst them with 20-odd Labour Mps joining the SNP and the Lib Dems in voting against.
Now, this vote is not binding and if the government loses its appeal to the Supreme Court will not be sufficient to satisfy the courts. But it does indicate that the government will be able to get an Article 50 bill through the Commons without too much trouble. It does make you wonder why Theresa May didn’t simply ask parliament to pass an Article 50 resolution before the Gina Miller case made it to the High Court.
We now wait to see what more information the government sets out as part of its Brexit plan—a commitment to do this is the price that it has had to pay for this victory. Seeing as David Davis indicated in this debate that the plan might not tell us whether or not Britain wanted to stay in the customs union, I suspect it might rather underwhelm.
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