PMQs live: Theresa May pledges Brexit White Paper to spell out negotiating strategy
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Your support makes all the difference.Welcome to The Independent’s live blog of today’s PMQs – here are the latest updates:
Theresa May is set to face Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, in the Commons after the Government’s defeat in a major Supreme Court constitutional ruling on Tuesday. The Prime Minister is likely to come under attack from the Opposition benches for wasting taxpayers’ money on what the majority believed was a foregone conclusion.
But Ms May could also use the session to play on divisions developing in Labour over the triggering of Article 50, the mechanism for leaving the EU. There have been reports that up to a quarter of Labour MPs are ready to defy any potential whip in order to vote down Article 50 in the Commons – despite the Labour leader insisting he would not attempt to block Brexit and “frustrate the process”.
Speaking on Wednesday the Shadow Attorney General Baroness Chakrabarti said Labour would “not necessarily” try to vote down a white paper if it disagreed with the proposals it contained.
She told Today: "I think there could be a distinction between the nature of the debate over the White Paper and the debate over what the Bill itself could contain."
She added: "We are clear that Article 50 should be triggered, we are clear that whichever side we were on in the referendum debate we respect the outcome of the referendum but the in/out question is just a beginning. The more difficult questions are yet to come.
"What kind of country is Britain going to be after Brexit? What kind of relationship is Britain going to have with the EU and the rest of the world?
"These questions can't be left to Government to stitch up in negotiations in secret."
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