UK Ministers have made two changes to the Brexit Bill but they believe that Members of Parliament will vote against the adjustments as the bill goes through them for the second time.
Peers have remained adamant that Parliament must have a say in the final Brexit deal before any signing.
Prime Minister Theresa May is waiting upon the EU Withdrawal Bill for her to trigger Article 50 that formally begins the exit process from the EU. The Bill will only get to its final stages once the two Houses agree to the content within it, reports BBC.
Analysts expect the formal Brexit process to start as a soon as Tuesday but that is also dependent on the Bill.
The bill is at the mercy of the House of Commons and House of Lords who after debating on it will cast a vote. MPs will be the first to cast a vote, and if they disagree with the changes made by the Lords, it will be passed to the peers who will have to decide if they will also oppose government’s plans.
The two chambers will continue exchanging the bill until they arrive at a common ground. The back and forth interchange will likely make Parliament’s doors open the whole night. If an agreement is not struck overnight, time has been set aside for Tuesday and Wednesday.
The agreed upon bill will then progress to Royal Assent after which Theresa May will have gained the powers to formally inform the other EU members that Britain is ready for the negotiations.
Theresa May had issued a promise some few months ago that she would trigger Article 50 by end of March so as to begin the two-year withdrawal process.
She was rather impatient last week, judging by her comments to reporters at a Brussels summit: “Our European partners have made clear to me that they want to get on with the negotiations, and so do I,” she said.
After notifying the EU through writing, the other 27 members of the European Union will take approximately 48 hours to present their first draft proposal for the negotiations. However, talks will not commence until some months later on as both sides get themselves ready.
Labour Factor in the Brexit Bill Changes
There is a huge possibility that the MPs will vote against the Lords’ amendments to the bill but the peers are less likely to make moves that can keep the bill to a standstill.
That said, the bill may be ready by Monday midnight.
Labour called upon the PM to retain only the vital Lords amendments, adding that EU citizens in the UK are curious whether they will have a say in the matter.
“The issue of the rights of EU nationals to remain here is a decent human one and part of our economic success or not – because if we lost those working in the NHS, then we damage our own health service, we damage our own economy,” said leader Jeremy Corbyn.
