The government lost the critical vote by 311 votes to 293, a stinging defeat for May at the beginning of a week of votes on issues related to Brexit. The government immediately pledged to publish the legal advice, prepared by Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, on Wednesday.
The opposition Labour Party, which pushed for the vote, was jubilant. "It's a historic first for government ministers to be found in contempt," Labour's Brexit spokesman Kier Starmer told the BBC. "Frankly it should never have come to this."
Earlier in the day, the British government was dealt another blow when a top European Union legal adviser ruled that the UK could unilaterally halt the Brexit process.
In an opinion prepared for the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Strasbourg, the advocate general said the UK did not need the approval of the 27 remaining EU member states to halt the two-year countdown triggered invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. The UK government had fought the case, saying it had no intention of stopping the Brexit process.
More details to come
No comments:
Post a Comment