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[cormack12]

The UK Government has been defeated on clause 9, amendment 7 and must now draft the amendment into the bill. This was despite a dramatic last minute concession.

What is clause 9?

Clause 9 allows ministers to use delegated powers to implement the withdrawal agreement. Dominic Grieve has tabled an amendment which would only allow ministers to use those powers if Parliament has voted to implement the terms of the withdrawal agreement (amendment 7). Therefore, it gives MPs an opportunity to vote against the final deal.

In an attempt to address these concerns, on 13 November the Government announced that it would enshrine the withdrawal agreement through a separate bill: the Withdrawal Agreement and Implementation Bill. However, Dominic Grieve did not withdraw his amendment.

On 10 December a cross-party group of MPs – including Chuka Umunna and Anna Soubry – released a statement urging backbenchers to support Grieve’s amendment. With the public support of a number of backbench Conservative MPs, the Government is likely to need to make a further concession to address the issue of a “meaningful vote” to avoid a defeat. This means allowing Parliament an early enough say to send the Government back to the negotiating table if they do not like the deal being agreed – rather than be presented with a deal to rubber stamp. However, given the two-year Article 50 deadline, there may be limits on how meaningful any vote could be.

Further info: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42346192

I think the last sentence of the above speaks volumes. There will be some sort of time sensitive deadline that makes this moot in the long run I fear, but I'm glad it was voted for. Another damaging defeat following the election. I think it now mimics the distrust and feeling of an obfuscated agenda behind the scenes.

Ultimately it should stop the Government trying to just do what they want and then never have to revisit or fix it. It moves from:

This is what we've negotiated on your behalf, you can have a say but if we don't feel like listening to you we will just instigate the leaving deal anyway.

to

This is the deal on the table and we intend to leave on these terms. Do you agree we can trigger the leave process or do we need to redraft certain elements.

 

[LordRaptor]

No deal is better than a bad deal, said someone who knows no deal is worst deal but wont be around to suffer the consequences.

 

[KevinRo]

This logic. Shooting yourself in the foot after having shot yourself once already.

 

[nush]

things are going pretty good .gif