MPs must pass the ‘meaningful vote’ amendment

Labour Party

The House of Lords has voted in favour of an amendment which will give Parliament a meaningful vote if the Government fails to reach a Brexit deal.

The House of Lords voted through the amendment and it was supported by Tory Peers including Michael Heseltine, Chris Patten and Syeeda Warsi who rebelled against their government to vote Dominic Grieve MP amendment through.

The amendment was tabled following news that the Government had reportedly reneged on an agreed compromise made with Grieve in which he was promised a meaningful vote.

It’s disgraceful that the Government knowingly misled one of its own MPs by not only failing to deliver the promised meaningful vote if Brexit fails, but worse still the Government went onto adopt a position which it knew made it impossible to have such a vote. The Government knew this wouldn’t be possible!

The revised amendment will be voted on in the Commons this Wednesday. Currently sources say the Government is confident that the Tory rebels don’t have enough support for it to pass. Once again, I urge all MP’s to search their moral compass and do the right thing and vote in favour of the amendment, so that Parliament is able to play a proper role.

The new amendment stipulates that “ministers must update parliament by 21 January 2019 if there is no prospect of a deal with the EU and then have two weeks to return to the House of Commons with a statement on how the government plans to proceed. MPs would then be given a vote on whether to approve the action in statement.”

If the proposals are so deeply flawed and unworkable then it is only right that Parliament can provide additional scrutiny; it has a duty to resolve the stalemate.