UK: Early Parliamentary Debates on the Commencement of Brexit

General News
The start of the Parliamentary debates start today for the commencement of Brexit

The debates in the British Parliament on the draft law concerning the activation of Brexit, the output from the European Union, begins Tuesday 31st January. Several amendments have been tabled, including consultation of the Scottish and Northern Irish parliaments.

The British Parliament looks from noon on Tuesday at the bill to allow the government to launch the release of the EU negotiations, more commonly known as Brexit.

Objective: quickly pass this legislation

Entitled “Bill of the European Union (notice of removal)” , the document, very briefly and released Thursday, asks parliamentarians to “give the Prime Minister the power to notify, under Article 50 of the Treaty of European Union, the intention of the UK to withdraw from the EU “ .

The examination of the text before the House of Commons begins Tuesday and Wednesday before three more days of debate on the 6th, 7th and 8th February, which should be concluded by a vote, according to the government. If the text is particularly short and could theoretically be approved quickly, as desired by the executive, it has already led to the filing of five “reasoned amendments” to nip this bill in the bud.

One can thus read in both of these queries, available on the website of the Parliament, the MEPs call that the bill not be studied because it “fails to ensure in particular the future membership of the United Kingdom within the European single market.”

Another amendment rejects the study of the text because the regional parliaments will not be consulted on the activation of Article 50. A fourth calls for the same due to the absence of a “white paper” on strategy by Theresa May.

This has yet agreed last week the publication of this document will be inspired by her speech on the 17th January in which she defended a break “clear and clean” with the European Union, involving the release of the single market for to regain control of the country’s borders.

But, despite the insistence of leader of the Labour opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, she declined to give a date of publication.

Little doubt about the bill

These amendments have little chance of success, the Conservative party with a narrow majority in the lower house of parliament and Labour, the main opposition party, who have promised not to block the bill.

However, sixty pages of amendments to the nuances were also filed and must be debated next week. They include obliging the government to regularly report to Parliament.

The bill will be presented before the House of Lords, the upper house of parliament, where new amendments can be tabled, before being forwarded to the Queen for Royal Assent.

“This is not a bill about whether the UK should leave the EU or not, or how it should. This is simply to apply a decision already made, a point of no return has been reached “ declared on Tuesday by the Minister of Brexit, David Davis, according to the text of his speech provided by his services. “We asked the British people if they wanted to leave the EU, they decided they wanted to”, he added.

This bill follows the Supreme Court decision to force the government to obtain parliamentary approval before activating Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which will launch the EU’s output negotiations.

The Prime Minister Theresa May has promised to activate before the end of March this article 50, to commence the negotiations for Brexit. The government said that the vote of MPs should not jeopardize this timetable.

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