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UK publishes the Brexit Bill
The British government has published a bill which would give permission to the prime minister to trigger article 50 – it is just two paragraphs long.
The bill gives Mrs May the power to notify the European Council that the UK has decided to leave the EU and says the legislation may be called ‘The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017.
It has already had its ‘first reading’ in the House of Commons, which presents it to the house but does not involve any debate. A second reading is scheduled for Tuesday and the government wants it to be pushed through the Commons as quickly as possible, with a vote planned for Wednesday February 8. It will be debated further on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.
Some MPs are, however, unhappy that a promised ‘white paper’ on the government’s Brexit negotiation aims is not expected to be ready for them to see before they debate the bill. There are also reports of dissatisfaction among some Labour MPs with leader Jeremy Corbyn's instructions to vote the bill through.
The white paper is expected to expand on the aims which Mrs May outlined last week, when she said that the UK would leave the single market but aim to retain the ‘best-possible access’ to it. She also said she aimed to prioritise protecting expat rights.
One senior Conservative MP told The Independent: ““I don’t intend to start jumping off a building into the dark without some understanding of what’s at the bottom.”
Some MPs are expected now to table amendments to the bill.
Notes to the bill say the government wants it to be ‘fast-tracked’. This is because the need for the bill was ‘unexpected’, the notes say, following as it did the recent court challenge in the High Court and Supreme Court.
The notes say that if usual procedures were followed this would cause ‘considerable delay’ to the UK starting the formal process to leave the EU and make it impossible to do it before the end of March, as the prime minister plans.
Among other points, the notes also state that the bill has ‘no financial implications’.
It is said that lawyers looking to launch a separate legal case - this time in the Irish High Court - which ultimately seeks to obtain a ruling from the European Court as to whether the article 50 trigger is reversible or not, will formally lodge their legal action with the court tomorrow (Friday).
