2019 March

The Prime Minister should have given Parliament broad heads of agreement right at the start, so that she could understand what Parliament wanted. Secretaries of State have resigned—we are now on our third Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. Ministers have resigned. This is a crisis of the Government’s own making, and the Cabinet is divided.

On Thursday 14 March 2019 the House of Commons voted on the following motion on whether to extend Article 50:

Today’s motion is substantially the same as the previous two, so the House is being asked to vote on the deal once again. It is the Government who have put us in this position. Their red lines were drawn right at the beginning and formed the boundaries for the negotiations. There are ongoing investigations into how the vote was conducted. There was secrecy and a lack of information, and Parliament was bypassed and ignored. That is pernicious to democracy.

After the House of Commons voted to extend Article 50 by a majority of 210 votes (Ayes: 412, Noes: 202) on  Thursday 14 March 2019, I responded to an emergency business statement from the Leader of the House:

On Wednesday 13 March 2019, the Government was defeated three times as the House of Commons voted against leaving the European Union without a deal.