Westminster – as it happened: Government defeated over plan to enshrine date of Brexit in law
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Your support makes all the difference.Peers have dealt a fresh blow to Theresa May’s Brexit strategy by voting to remove the official exit date from her flagship EU legislation.
The government suffered two defeats on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill in the Lords - taking its tally to 12 losses - and it faced a further threat on Tuesday night as cross-party peers were due to push a vote to effectively keep Britain in the single market.
It comes as the prime minister was forced to insist she had full confidence in Boris Johnson, after the foreign secretary launched a public assault on her proposals for a customs partnership after Brexit.
In a major intervention, Mr Johnson said the proposals favoured by the Prime Minister were "crazy" and would create a “whole new web of bureaucracy”.
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Moving his amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill, which removed mention of exit day being 29 March 2019, the Duke of Wellington said:
We know beyond any doubt that for the purposes of this bill we leave the EU on March 29 2019. But this date should not be defined and specified in case it becomes necessary and in the national interest to agree an extension as provided in article 50 ...
We should give ministers a bit more flexibility to secure and obtain ratification of the best possible deal, which will do the least damage to the economy and the national interest.
Leader of the Liberal Democrat's in the Lords, Lord Newby said: “It was frankly ridiculous to enshrine this date in law from the get-go.
“In negotiations you have to be flexible and willing to change direction if it is not in your best interests, and putting this date down as a bench-mark was never in the best interests of the UK.
“Thankfully, the House of Lords has had the sense to overturn this attempted government power-grab.”
Peers have dealt a blow to Theresa May’s Brexit strategy by voting to remove the official exit date from the government's flagship EU legislation.
In the 12th defeat for the government in the Lords, members of the upper chamber backed a cross-party amendment to remove reference to Ms May’s stated exit date, March 29 2019, from the front of the bill.
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Theresa May has tried to paper over Brexit cracks in her Cabinet after failing to admonish Boris Johnson for calling one of her policy options “crazy”.
Instead the prime minister was forced to say she still has full confidence in the foreign secretary, as she attempts to find a position on future customs relations with the EU that her Cabinet can unite on.
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Baroness Angela Smith of Basildon, Labour’s leader in the House of Lords said: “These two amendments are a further opportunity for MPs to consider the finer details of this important legislation.
“On our future working relations with EU agencies, many people – including within government – are only now becoming aware of the massive issues raised by our departure that Ministers need to get right.
“It was also a nonsense for the government to include a fixed exit date – something that could overshadow the crossing of every ‘t’ and dotting of every ‘i’ in the negotiations. The House of Lords amendment is not about stopping Brexit but the fine print of when and how the agreements are concluded.”
Peers have spoken in favour of continued membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) after Brexit.
The EEA allows for the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital within the European single market.
Labour's Lord Alli told the Lords that continued membership of the EEA was vital to ensure the future profitability of the UK's export business.
Lord Alli, moving an amendment which would bind the Government to negotiate an EEA agreement, said: "It is the EEA that deals with services, services like retail, tourism, transport, communications, financial services and aerospace where we have a £14 billion trade surplus in these services.
"The customs union only will benefit our European neighbours in their imports and without an EEA equivalent it will damage our profitable export business and therefore the jobs and livelihoods of many thousands of people.
"It's for that reason that we need to ensure that any continuation of the customs union must include a continuation in the EEA or its equivalent."
That's it for the politics liveblog today. We will be bringing you the latest on the EU Withdrawal Bill on the website but for now, thanks for following.
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