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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Nicola Slawson (now) and Andrew Sparrow (until 7.50pm)

Brexit: MPs debate article 50 bill - as it happened

Ken Clarke: Tories are ‘Eurosceptic and mildly anti-immigrant’

Article 50 debate - late evening summary

The debate has now ended for the night after nearly 12 hours of talking. It will continue tomorrow. Here’s a summary of tonight’s speeches:

  • David Lammy, who will be voting against the bill, made one of the evening’s most powerful speeches and quoted both Enoch Powell and Winston Churchill. He said: “[Tories] salivate at the thought of becoming a tax haven like Singapore. But the poorest will be the ones to suffer and many of them are in my constituency.”
  • Caroline Lucas, also made a passionate speech, saying she spoke for all those who continue to be “desperately concerned”. She criticises the way May has moved towards what she calls an extreme Brexit and the way she had dealt with Trump.
  • Another who plans to vote against the bill was Heidi Alexander, who said she had planned to do the opposite until Theresa May’s speech in Lancaster House, which made her feel “ashamed”.
  • Nick Chalk, was one of several Tory MPs who campaigned to remain but will vote for the bill saying that’s what true democrats will do.
  • Ed Vaizey, who was a minister under David Cameron, made one of the most outspoken and angry speeches. The MP railed against the government for sneaking out the announcement that Britain will pull out of the European nuclear research agency Euratom in the notes accompanying the bill without telling any local MPs or the agency’s staff. He’s also “sick and tired” of being branded as unpatriotic and being against the will of the people for wanting parliament to have more of a say in negotiations.
  • Hywel Williams said that businesses are already pulling out of investing in Wales and confidence is low. “We cannot afford the luxury of time and wait to see what deals we can strike,” he stressed.
  • Steve Baker had a warning for if the bill wasn’t passed they would “suffer the kind of political implosion in this country which we can scarcely imagine”.

That’s it for tonight. We’ll be back tomorrow so you can follow the rest of the debate ahead of the vote. Thanks so much for joining us today and for all your comments. Sorry I haven’t been able to directly respond.

Updated

Several Labour MPs have now said they will defy party orders not to block Theresa May from starting the Brexit process, amid criticism of the government’s approach. Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn may find a few surprises in the list of those planning to vote against the bill.

Shadow foreign minister Catherine West said she felt not voting for the bill’s second reading is the “only way to make the Government listen” to her concerns. Former culture secretary Ben Bradshaw said he would go against a three-line whip on a bill for the first time in nearly 20 years as an MP. Maria Eagle, also a former minister, blamed the Government’s approach for her opposition.

A handful of other backbenchers followed, including Jo Stevens, who quit as shadow Welsh secretary over her party’s Brexit approach and compared triggering Article 50 to a “funeral”.

Updated

Hywel Williams says those who think Brexit will be all done and dusted after article 50 is triggered, need to be aware that this is going to be a marathon not a dash.

The Plaid Cymru MP says no matter how many special relationships May “scrapes” or deals she does, we’re not going to get as good a deal as the single market can offer.

Businesses are already pulling out of investing in Wales and confidence is low. “We cannot afford the luxury of time and wait to see what deals we can strike,” he says.

“If agriculture, which is back bone of my country, is threatened then what kind of future will we have?” He says his language and culture is at risk. He finishes with a question for the government: “How much lamb can we possibly sell to New Zealand?”

Updated

Tory MP Steve Baker, who is pro-Brexit, says if MPs refused to pass the bill then they would “suffer the kind of political implosion in this country which we can scarcely imagine”.

The MP for Wycombe says: “If we were to go ahead and refuse this bill, I believe that even our own party on this side would suffer grave consequences. It’s in all of our interests that this bill passes.”

In her speech, Labour former minister Maria Eagle bemoaned the lack of consultation, adding the “nature of the exit” the government appears to be pursuing has also influenced her decision to vote against the second reading of the bill tomorrow night.

“The new Government has acted as though the referendum gives them carte blanche to engineer the most extreme kind of arrangements for the UK leaving the EU, though in truth it asked only whether voters wish to remain or leave and had nothing to say about the subsequent arrangements the UK should adopt.”

She says: “I think that this extreme right-wing exit without any authorisation from this Parliament or the people of this country that they’re pursuing will damage the jobs and economy of the UK, will undermine our standing and position in the world and will hit the poorest – like many who live and work in my constituency – the hardest.”

Ed Vaizey, the former minister for culture, communications and creative industries launched an outspoken attack on the government in his speech.

The Tory MP for Wantage and Didcot says he is “so angry” after ministers snuck out the announcement that Britain will pull out of the European nuclear research agency Euratom in the notes accompanying the Bill to trigger Article 50 without telling the staff affected.

Vaizey, says scientists working on the cutting edge of nuclear research have been left fearing for their jobs and homes after the shock announcement. “I am so angry with the government on its position about Euratom. Not a single minister contacted me, the honourable member for Oxford West and Abingdon, and honourable member for Henley, the Culham Research Centre with the Joint European Torus, employing hundreds of people at the heart of nuclear fusion research.

“We have all been inundated with countless emails from people who now literally believe their job is going. I’ve got the European Space Agency in my constituency. If the government is going to make an announcement like that in the explanatory notes of a bill at least they could alert relevant MPs beforehand, and at least they could provide my constituents with a definitive statement about what the future of European co-operation on civil nuclear engineering is going to be.”

He used the end of his speech to list other things that are irritating him including the myth that on the first day out of the EU “we will be handed a suite of lovely trade deals and we will simply sign them.

He says when we try and sign a deal with the US, especially the deals on agriculture and manufacturing, there will be protests and demos like we have never seen. The government should be honest and admit it will take years to negotiate these deals “so please don’t insult our intelligence” by pretending we will be signing them on day one.

He is also unhappy about remainers such as himself constantly being branded as unpatriotic and he is “sick and tired” that to ask that the government be held to account, that it feeds back to MPs every three months and that it publishes a white paper, is somehow going against the will of the people.

Updated

Labour’s former culture secretary Ben Bradshaw said earlier that he would go against a three-line whip on a bill for the first time in nearly 20 years as an MP.

He said: “The Government has made absolutely clear that the only choice, then, will be between its hard Brexit and WTO [World Trade Organisation] rules. This could be our only chance to prevent the hardest of Brexits, or to soften its blow. I cannot and will not vote to destroy jobs and prosperity in my constituency.”

The Exeter MP added he was “disappointed and saddened” his party had imposed a three-line whip, given the lack of time available to debate the bill.

Wes Streeting, Labour MP says he would be supporting the Bill on a point of democratic principle.

“I’d just say to my party that if we want to be in government again, and we want to create the world that we want to see, we must first engage with the world as it is,” he says. “The reality of where we find ourselves today is that people have chosen to put this country on a very different course, outside the European Union.”

He spoke of the promises made in the campaign including the £350m-a-week NHS funding pledge which was splashed across campaign buses, which he says the Leave side hate to be reminded of. It was a promise that swayed many Labour votes and staff of the NHS and they expect the promise to be fulfilled. He says: “Brexit means Brexit but also £350 million a week for the NHS means £350 million a week for the NHS”.

He will vote for the bill but stressed that May has a duty to ensure parliament has a say in negotiations. It would be an outrage, he says, if parliaments in other European countries and the EU parliament itself got to vote on the deal before this parliament.

“How can it be taking back control if their voices and their votes carried more than this parliament?,” he says.

Updated

Nick Chalk, a Tory MP who campaigned to remain says true democrats, like himself, will vote for the bill. The voter turnout was high, he says, because we were asking for direct instruction. He would have preferred to stay in the single market but has come to realise it was never a realistic option.

“I’m a European, I’m a Briton and I’m also a democrat,” he concludes.

Labour’s Heidi Alexander, who tabled an amendment to throw out the Bill, said she would vote against it because she was “ashamed” of May’s rhetoric around immigration and the single market.

The former shadow health secretary says: “Democracy did not start or end on June 23. It is a process and not an event. There were circumstances in which I would have voted to trigger Article 50. The prime minister killed off that prospect for me when she made her speech in Lancaster House.

“A speech in which she said she would pull us out of the single market, a speech in which she put her desire to reduce immigration above our country’s economic interest, and a speech in which she threatened the countries closest to us with a trade war if she didn’t get her way.

“I was ashamed of the words of the British prime minister on that day and I resolved then to vote against the triggering of Article 50.”

She echoes Lammy by saying that we have an urgent need to find solutions to the NHS and social care crisis, but Brexit will mean “you can kiss goodbye to those things. Endless hours will be spent recreating systems that currently work well ... Brexit will suck all the energy from Whitehall and Westminster”

She finishes with a rousing end to her speech and says she will vote against the bill. “Now is not the time to be making threats and burning bridges. My country comes first.”

Updated

Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion also makes a powerful speech, saying she speaks for her constituency and all those who continue to be “desperately concerned”. She criticises the way May has moved towards what she calls an extreme Brexit.

She says we are being forced to make trade deals with “any despot we can find” from Turkey to “a divisive and dangerous US president who the prime minister unable or unwilling to stand up to”.

She says nobody voted for us to be a tax haven, “clinging onto the coat tails of Trump’s America”.

She says that the issue of the environment has been conspicuous by its absence in all the debates. Environment regulation as strong as what the EU offers is needed.

Some people are claiming that people who voted to leave didn’t know what they were voting for, Stuart Andrew, Tory MP for Pudsey says. That shows some complete arrogance and real misunderstanding of people’s concerns and frustrations, he says.

Claims that people voted to leave out of racism or prejudice really angered him. “That is frankly disgraceful,” he says. “We are not little Englanders. We are now big Britainers.”

David Lammy has made one of the most passionate speeches of the debate. He says a hard Brexit will mean that there will be no capacity to deal with the hard pressed issues highlighted in the Brexit campaign such as problems in the NHS and the housing crisis.

He says: “It is the easy option to blame migrants who have come here with skills instead of successive governments, both Conservative and Labour, who have failed. Failed to educate our own to compete, failed to build affordable housing, failed to fund our public services, and failed to ensure growth is felt outside London and the South East.

“A hard Brexit won’t deal with any of the long-standing structural problems highlighted by the Brexit vote, it will make these worse.”

He also says: “[Tories] salivate at the thought of becoming a tax haven like Singapore. But the poorest will be the ones to suffer and many of them are in my constituency.”

He finishes by quoting both Winston Churchill and Enoch Powell. “How far have things fallen when a black member of parliament has to quote Enoch Powell?” he asks.

Powell, he says, made the same false warnings about immigration as Brexiteers 50 years ago – and notes he was wrong. He says he will be voting against the bill. “Patriotism is about more than just blind faith,” he concludes.

Updated

Article 50 debate - Early evening summary

Here is a summary of where we stand so far.

  • MPs have now spent almost seven hours debating historic legislation which will trigger the start of Britain’s departure from the European Union, with little enthusiasm and considerable anxiety. Although some pro-leave MPs have spoken with jubilation, claiming this marks a landmark moment in British history, generally there has been very little triumphalism, and the overall tone has been one of caution and humility. A majority of MPs voted to remain in the EU referendum, and today is a rare example of a legislature voting for something that it doesn’t really want. But, from pro-remain MPs, there is widespread acceptance that, having delegated the decision to the public in the referendum, the Commons ought to accept their verdict. Brexit was supposed to be partly about handing power back to parliament but today it sounded like a subordinate body, not a confident, assertive one.
  • David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has so far refused to indicate whether the government will offer further concessions as the bill goes through parliament. Opposition MPs have tabled 85 pages of amendments to the bill, but beyond promising a white paper - now expected on Thursday - Davis has refused to indicate whether he will accept any of them. If Labour and pro-remain Tory MPs do unite around any one demand, it seems most likely to be behind the call for a meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal. Dominic Grieve, the Conservative former attorney general, said it was important for MPs to get a vote on the proposals before MEPs. (See 3.38pm.) There is also considerable support from all sides of the House for the rights of EU nationals living in Britain to be guaranteed. But it is not clear whether the opposition have enough rebel Tory support to win votes on these issues when MPs vote on amendments next week.
  • Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, has defended his party’s decision to vote for the article 50 bill despite the fact most Labour MPs opposed Brexit. His speech was sombre, although mostly heard with respect. Several Labour MPs have confirmed that they will ignore the whip and vote against the bill tomorrow. One estimate puts the number of likely rebels at around 25. There are also some Labour MPs who have said they will vote with Jeremy Corbyn tomorrow, but who have said they reserve the right to vote against the bill at third reading if the government does not accept amendments. The most significant of these potential “third reading” rebels is Clive Lewis, the shadow business secretary who is seen as a possible leadership candidate in the future. (See 7.06pm.) The Lib Dems also have their own mini revolt problem, with two of the party’s nine MPs not signing the party’s reasoned amendment. (See 12.33pm.)

That’s all from me for tonight.

My colleague Nicola Slawson will be taking over now.

Updated

Labour’s Albert Owen says he will support the second reading of the bill with a heavy heart. But he will wait to see whether the bill gets amended at committee stage before deciding what to do at third reading.

Clive Lewis, the shadow business secretary, announced last week that he would be voting for the article 50 bill at second reading after it was reported that he was one of the shadow cabinet members particularly unhappy about Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to impose a three-line whip.

But he has now confirmed that, if Labour’s amendments are not accepted, he will vote against the bill at third reading and resign from the shadow cabinet. This is from ITV’s Emma Hutchinson.

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative chair of the Commons Treasury committee, says he voted to remain but accepts the result of the referendum. There could be considerable advantages from Brexit, he says. But he says it is important to get a transitional deal. And he says he thinks the UK should continue to have a close, ongoing relationship with the EU after Brexit.

Labour’s Steve McCabe says that he will vote for the bill. But he says that is essential that the government agrees to report back to the Commons regularly on how the negotiations are going, so that MPs can insist on changes if a new approach is needed.

Turning away from the debate for a moment, it has emerged that Theresa May is hiring a new communications chief. It’s James Slack, who is currently political editor of the Daily Mail. These are from Politico Europe’s Tom McTague.

Labour’s Stephen Timms says the government wants to get net migration below 100,000. But the government already has total control of migration from outside the EU, and the figure for net migration from outside the EU is well above 100,000.

He says he thinks David Cameron’s problems started when he took the Conservatives out of the centre-right EPP group in the European parliament. That was when they started to lose influence, he says.

He says he will be voting against the bill tomorrow night.

Quite a few of the earlier posts have now been beefed up with direct quotes, from the Press Association reports. But to get to updates to show you may need to refresh the page.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative, says the 23 June last year will be remembered as a great day in history. It is comparable with Agincourt and Waterloo, he suggests.

All MPs are doing is implementing the glorious decision taken by the public in the referendum, he says.

The Lib Dem MP Sarah Olney says she will be voting against the bill. She represents a pro-remain constituency for a pro-remain party. But she also thinks leaving the EU will be against the interests of the country.

The Conservative MP Claire Perry says she was “appalled” by the quality of the debate during the EU referendum campaign. The leave campaign was “spiced up” by anti-immigration rhetoric. As examples, she cites the Ukip “Breaking Point” poster, and the Vote Leave claims about Turkey joining the EU.

Labour’s Liam Byrne says he agrees with with his colleague Jo Stevens said. (See 5.39am.) He says David Cameron is to blame for this. He adopted a Bullingdon Club approach to this: create a terrible mess, throw some money on the table, and expect someone else to clear it up.

Tory MPs challenge him over the point about money, reminding him of the note he left before the 2010 general election, when he was chief secretary to the Treasury, saying there was no money.

Byrne says since then the national debt has gone up by £500bn.

He says he accepts that we are leaving the EU. But he hopes that instead Britain can adopt a more “confederal” approach, cooperating more with EU countries on issues like security, jobs and science.

You can read a transcript of the start of the debate here, on the Hansard website. Hansard generally posts speeches about three hours after they have been delivered, and at the moment the Hansard goes up to Anna Soubry’s speech. As the evening goes on, more speeches will be added.

Oliver Dowden, a Conservative, says mass immigration has had a profound effect on Britain. People felt they had lost control. David Cameron tried to address this in his renegotiation, but he could not, because EU countries would not abandon free movement. He says Angela Merkel, having been brought up in East Germany, is opposed to border controls.

He says, because of his innate conservatism, he did not think it was worth the risk voting to leave the EU. But the people thought otherwise, and their decision must be respected, he says.

He says there are many reasons to be optimistic about the future.

The SDLP’s Alasdair McDonnell says that he cannot vote for the bill.

James Morris, a Conservative, says he was one of the 81 Tories who defied the whip to vote in favour of a referendum in 2011. That seems a long time ago, he says.

(It was. Here’s the Guardian’s live blog covering that vote. Our blogs looked very different then. I’ve just had a quick look at my summary from the end of the debate. “Having just sat through it all, it’s hard not to feel that the prospect of a referendum at some point this decade is looking more likely,” I concluded.)

Jo Stevens, who resigned as shadow Welsh secretary so she can vote against the bill, says Brexit has led to growing intolerance. Foreign children in her constituency have been spat at, she says. And she says she fears that is what is happening in the US will make matters worse.

Some have been the victims of racism and hate crimes, like my friend Suzanne who came to Cardiff from Germany and has a young daughter, Lilleth, who is in primary school, who have been spat at, told to ‘go home’ and had bricks and stones thrown at them in the street.

This is the climate that they and we are living in, and I do not believe that it is a coincidence of timing.

It is a direct consequence of the referendum campaign. And the events of the past week in the United States make me more fearful of the rapidly developing climate of intolerance in our country.

She is particularly critical of David Cameron. He put the interests of his party ahead of the interests of his country when he called the referendum. And then he went to Brussels and failed to get an acceptable deal, she says.

She says leaving the EU will be a terrible mistake.

The single market is the lifeline to our manufacturing industry - what’s left of it - in steel, automotive and aerospace as well as to our farming and food production sector.

So the prime minister’s decision that we are leaving the single market is something I cannot accept.

The referendum result last year felt like a body blow.

The prime minister’s [Lancaster House] speech felt like the life-support machine being switched off and triggering article 50 will for me feel like the funeral.

It is a matter of principle and conscience to me and I must represent the majority of my constituents and share their view - and I will not vote for this bill.

Updated

Peter Bone, the pro-leave Conservative, says at Tory selection meetings, people are asked if they would put party, country or constituency first. The right answer is country first, then constituency, then party.

Normally they go together, he says.

But he says the government made a mistake when it tried to use the royal prerogative to justify triggering article 50.

Labour’s Catherine West, a shadow Foreign Office minister, says, when she held an advice surgery after the referendum, 500 people came to see her because they were worried about the vote.

She used to be a councillor, she says. As a council leader, if she had taken a decision on the basis of a speech and a couple of letters in the papers, she would have been hounded out of office, she says.

She says she won’t back the bill.

Updated

Tom Pursglove, a Conservative pro-leave campaigner, says MPs have talked about Edmund Burke and MPs voting on the basis of their judgment. He says he used his judgment when he voted for the referendum and campaigned for leave.

The SNP’s Stephen Gethins asks Pursglove if he used his judgment and stood on a platform represented by a blank piece of paper.

Pursglove says the leave campaign did have a policy platform.

Labour’s Kate Green says she wants to direct her speech towards her constituents in Stretford and Urmston.

She says single market membership it out. But it is not clear what will come instead.

She says MPs are being asked to buy a “pig in a poke”.

To be asked to endorse an exit process when the outcome is so uncertain is unacceptable, she says.

She says she will abstain in the vote tomorrow. But, if the government does not provide proper assurances as the bill goes through its remaining stages, she will vote against it at third reading.

She says she has to vote on the basis of her conscience. And the interests of the young will not be well served by her voting for the bill.

She says Nick Clegg was right to say MPs should think about how they will be judged in the future.

Nigel Evans, the Conservative pro-leave MP, says the government should clear up what will happen to EU nationals living in the UK as soon as possible. The idea that they might be rounded up and put on an easyJet for the continent is despicable.

He says it is “cruel” for the European commission to oppose clarifying the rights of these citizens until the Brexit talks start.

He says this should be the first issue to be negotiated when the talks start. And, as soon as the a deal is struck, it should be announced.

The Conservative MP Neil Carmichael, who was strongly pro-remain, told MPs that being in the EU did not stop the UK trading with the rest of the world.

And the SNP MP Deidre Brock criticised the government for refusing to engage with the Scottish government over Brexit. She said the article 50 bill was “childish” and “disrespectful” in its simplicity.

Clegg claims May turned down soft Brexit compromise offer from Germany involving 'emergency brake'

In his speech earlier (see 2.42pm) Nick Clegg claimed that Theresa May turned down an offer from Germany for Britain to get the right to have some form of emergency brake over immigration, in return for the country adopting a soft Brexit. The former Lib Dem leader and former deputy prime minister told MPs:

Some people say there is no alternative, we must leave the single market, there is no remote chance we could find an accommodation with our European partners. Nonsense.

I will confirm to the House that I’ve recently heard on very good authority that senior German decision-makers, shortly after the prime minister [came into office] ... were keen to explore ways to deliver an emergency brake to the new UK prime minister - in return what they hoped for was an undisruptive economic Brexit.

But what did this government choose to do? It decided to spurn all friendship links with Europe, it decided to disregard the needs of Scotland, of Northern Ireland and indeed of our great capital here, London.

It decided to placate parts of the Conservative party rather than serve the long-term strategic interests of this country.

It decided to pander to the eye-popping, vitriol and bile we see every day from people like Mr Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, and the other members of the moneyed elite that run the Brexit right-wing press in this country.

This government has become too slavishly preoccupied with their opinions.

But above all this government has decided to disregard the hopes, the dreams and aspirations of 16.1m of our fellow citizens.

Clegg also criticsed May for her dealings with Donald Trump. He told MPs:

The British people did not vote to make themselves poorer by pulling ourselves out of the greatest free trading single market the world has ever seen.

The British people most certainly did not give a mandate to the government to indulge in this ludicrous, sycophantic farce we’ve seen in recent days in which this government - having burnt every bridge left with our friends in Europe - rushes across the Atlantic to sidle next to a US president, who they don’t seem to be aware whose nativism, whose isolationism, whose protectionism is diametrically opposed to the long-term strategic interests of the United Kingdom.

The quotes are from the Press Association.

Updated

Labour’s Emma Reynolds says the government has still not said when its promised vote on the final Brexit deal would take place.

She says the government should unilaterally guaranteed the rights of EU nationals living in Britain.

But it should also propose a preferential controlled immigration system, giving EU nationals preference over non-EU nationals. She says she and her Labour colleague Stephen Kinnock have published proposals for a two-tier system, with skilled EU migrants free to come to the UK if they have a job, but controls on the number of low-skilled workers admitted.

And she defends voting for the bill.

I campaigned to remain in the EU, but I accept the result of the referendum and I will be voting for this bill tomorrow evening. The leader of the Liberal Democrats calls this cowardly. I call it democracy.

We held a national referendum. Those of us on the remain side might not like the result, but we have to accept it.

Updated

Michael Gove, the Conservative former justice secretary and leading Vote Leave campaigner, provokes laughter when he says “all of us” are concerned about “raucous populism”.

He singles out the Liberal Democrats in particular for criticism, saying they cannot be called democratic when they oppose the outcome of the referendum.

He says MPs calling for a white paper are not saying what sort of Brexit they want.

Instead, they are trying to re-run the referendum, he says.

Anna Soubry, the Conservative, asks Gove is he still stands by the claim that leaving the EU could save £350m a week for the NHS. Or will he accept that was a lie?

Gove says he is not in government, so he cannot decide how the money saved is spent. But he says Vote Leave said £100m a week would go to the NHS. Vote Leave also wanted extra money to go to science, and VAT on fuel to be cut. He says:

I’ve no idea whether or not the word lie is unparliamentary, but what I do know is that as someone who is not in the government, I can’t deliver these sums.

But what I can do is I can consistently argue, as I have, that when we take back control of the money that we currently give to the European Union, we can invest that money in the NHS.

In fact, it was the consistent claim of the Leave campaign, as she well knows, that we should wish to give £100m to the NHS.

Some of the money that we were going to take back control of we would also use to spend on supporting science, and also on making sure that we can get rid of VAT on fuel - something that we cannot do while we are still members of the European Union.

Labour’s Angela Smith asks Gove if he will lobby for the extra money to go to the NHS.

Gove says he is calling for that.

He says he wants Brexit to be liberal, open and inclusive.

Britain should lower tariffs for developing nations and help them advance.

Britain can play a leading role in the world, he says. That includes standing tall against President Putin.

Updated

Labour’s Clive Efford says he agrees with almost everything Kenneth Clarke said in his speech. But he says he will back the bill because he sees the need to accept the result of the referendum.

And he calls for more accountability. He says it is “folly” to assume, as leave campaigners do, that the UK can fall out of the EU and rely on World Trade Organisations trading terms without the economy suffering.

Sir Oliver Letwin, the Conservative former Cabinet Office minister, says he is opposed to parliament getting the option of voting to keep the UK in the EU later in the Brexit process.

He says if MPs were to amend the bill to retain the option of having a vote on the Brexit deal that could lead to the UK staying in the EU, then the other EU states would have an incentive to offer the UK a deal so bad that parliament would vote to stay in.

That is why tomorrow’s vote should be final, he says.

He says he will be backing the bill with “some doubt and hesitation”. But he will back it because he thinks MPs have to accept the results of the referendum.

The New Statesman’s George Eaton has written an interesting blog about Sir Keir Starmer’s speech at the start of the debate. He says he thinks Brexit will be a key issue in the next Labour leadership contest. Here’s an extract:

At the next Labour leadership election, Brexit, which will define British politics for a decade or more, will be a central issue. Clive Lewis, the ambitious and energetic shadow business secretary, could yet aid his cause by voting against article 50. Starmer, another prospective leader, will hope for more than one reason that he does not.

It was Labour, not the Conservatives, that was the original eurosceptic party in British politics. After the 1975 referendum split Harold Wilson’s government, Michael Foot backed EEC withdrawal just six years later. It was Jacques Delors’s 1988 address to the Trades Unions Congress that led Labour to embrace Europe as a counterweight to Thatcherism (and the Tories to concurrently shun it). Today, as he drew the curtain on decades of EU support, Starmer appealed for a “good deal less of the gloating from those who voted to Leave”. But as Labour grapples with its Brexit plight, his wish is unlikely to be granted.

Chris Leslie, the Labour former shadow chancellor, says he cannot support the bill when there are so many questions about what happens. He says he has tabled amendments to get more clarity from the government about its plans.

He thinks the government is heading for a hard Brexit, he says.

He says he would like to see more fight from all MP, including from the Labour leadership, to get a better outcome. MPs should be trying to steer Theresa May away from a hard Brexit, he says.

Owen Paterson, the Conservative former environment secretary and a leading pro-leave figure, says the establishment is refusing to accept the result of the referendum.

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The New Statesman’s Stephen Bush has a useful guide to which MPs are likely to vote against the article 50 bill. He has tweeted a link to it.

Gisela Stuart, the Labour MP and leading Vote Leave campaigner, says she helped to draft the original article 50, when it was part of what was then a proposed constitution. She says it was originally intended as an expulsion clause. But the EU can never drop an idea, and that is why it ended up in the Lisbon treaty.

She says she thinks a unilateral decision to offer EU nationals the right to stay in the UK would help to ensure a successful negotiation.

Julian Lewis, the Conservative chair of the Commons defence committee, goes next. And his entire speech consists of one sentence.

The people have decided, and I’m going to vote accordingly.

Labour’s Meg Hillier, chair of the Commons public accounts committee, says she cannot back a bill like this with so little detail.

And she says the government should declare that EU nationals in the Britain now can stay.

The Conservative Nigel Evans suggests what EU nationals are experiencing is like torture. He says:

I think it’s actually tantamount to torture to not tell people who are from the EU living and working here that they cannot stay, as it is for British people living and working in the European Union.

Do you not believe that both sides ought to get together as quickly as possible and put people out of their misery, and tell them that they’re allowed to stay, live and work in the country where they currently are?

Hillier accepts that. She says the government should guarantee their rights unilaterally. She says:

I would agree with that position but I believe the government could go further and make a unilateral declaration.

Updated

Grieve says MPs should get vote on proposed final Brexit deal before MEPs vote on it

Dominic Grieve, the Conservative former attorney general, says when he was in government he found plenty of aspects of the EU to criticise. But he never thought the UK should leave, and he does not think that now.

In fact, the potential problems of leaving are considerable, he says.

He says, although the government wants to maintain good relations with the EU, leaving will make this harder.

He says he will support the government. Trying to obstruct the wishes of the electorate would create more uncertainty, he says.

He says many of the amendments tabled to the bill seem to be about micro-managing the Brexit process. He does not support that, he says.

But he says the government should follow proper process. He says the government must publish its white paper before the bill gets its committee stage debate.

And he says parliament should get to consider the final deal. And it should vote on that before the deal gets put to the European parliament.

  • Grieve says MPs should get vote on proposed final Brexit deal before the European parliament votes on it.

He ends saying he thinks the country is making a “grave error”.

I think we have made a grave error and I think it is one that will become more and more apparent with the passage of time.

Here is a Guardian video with an extract from Kenneth Clarke’s speech earlier.

Ken Clarke: Tories are ‘Eurosceptic and mildly anti-immigrant’

The DUP’s Sammy Wilson is speaking now. He says MPs should accept the results of the referendum. If Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland were given a veto over the result, that would be detrimental to the integrity of the United Kingdom, he says.

It would be detrimental to the Union if we had a situation where Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland had the right to say to the people of the whole of the United Kingdom ‘we don’t care how you voted, the 1.8m people in Northern Ireland have a right to veto how the rest of the people in the United Kingdom express their views’. That would be detrimental to the Union.

The SNP’s Ian Blackford says Scotland does not want a veto. It just wants to ensure that it can stay in, even if the rest of the UK leaves.

Wilson suggests that amounts to the same thing.

Updated

Sir Edward Leigh, a pro-leave Conservative, says it should be easy for the UK to sign a free trade deal with the EU after Brexit. He thinks Brexit will enable the UK to strengthen links with the rest of Europe, not to weaken them, he says.

I sincerely believe that this process is not a triumph of nationalism, of us being apart from them. I believe it is quite the opposite.

I believe it is part of a new internationalism and recognising our common citizenship of the whole world.

I think that we stand ready to break free of the protectionist barriers the EU has erected which have so damaged much of the third world, and rejoin the world at large.

As a former prime minister of Australia made clear - Britain is back.

Updated

MPs to debate petition saying Trump's state visit to UK should be cancelled

Turning away from the article 50 debate for a moment, it has just been announced that there will be a debate on the petition calling for Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK to be cancelled.

It will take place at 4.30pm on Monday 20 February. It will be in Westminster Hall, not the main Commons chamber, and it will just be a debate; there will not be a vote. It will last for up to three hours.

The debate has been triggered by this petition, saying that Trump should not get a state visit, which has been signed by 1.7m people online. It says Trump should be allowed to visit the UK but that he should not get a state visit “because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.”

But MPs will also consider a rival petition saying Trump should get a state visit. That has just been signed by 116,000 people.

Dame Rosie Winterton, the former Labour chief whip, is speaking now. She challenges the government to give an assurance that it will not withdraw from the European convention on human rights and the council of Europe.

John Redwood, the Conservative pro-leave campaigner, goes next. He says people voted to take back control when they voted to leave the EU in the referendum.

Dame Margaret Beckett, the Labour MP, says Redwood is saying that the forecasts about Brexit being bad for the economy were wrong. But what does he say to the argument that that is like falling of a building and saying things are fine because you have not hit the ground yet.

Redwood says he does not accept that analogy. People argued that Brexit would lead to a recession this winter. But it has not happened, he says.

He says if remain had won, he would have stood down as an MP. He would not have seen the point of carrying on because parliament would have carried on having so little power.

Now, all those good laws Europe is supposed to have given us, we can keep them for ourselves, he says.

What is it about freedom that the other side do not like?

He urges MPs to vote to make parliament sovereign, as the people have urged them to do.

Updated

Kate Hoey, the Labour pro-leave campaigner, is speaking now. She says she is fed up with the argument that people who voted to leave did not know what they were voting for. That patronising attitude helps to explain why people wanted to vote leave.

Iain Duncan Smith, her Conservative leave colleague, intervenes. People were more engaged in the referendum campaign than in any election he has taken part in, he says.

Hoey agrees.

She says she also wants to challenge the idea that leave voters were, if not outright racists, then implicit racists. That is wrong, she says.

I’m adding some direct quotes to some of the earlier posts, using quotes filed by the Press Association. But to get the updates to appear you may need to refresh the page.

Anna Soubry, the Conservative pro-European, is speaking now.

She says she will vote for the bill “with a heavy heart” because she said she would respect the result of the referendum.

She says she does not think history will be kind to this government or this parliament. Why did it put an option to people that would leave them worse off?

And she criticises Labour. The party is going against everything it believes in, she says.

Labour’s Chris Bryant says his party is grateful for her advice. But was Soubry a member of the government that was committed to cutting net migration below 100,000.

Soubry says her views on immigration are well known. She says she thinks students should be excluded from the migration figures.

There have been speeches from Hilary Benn, Iain Duncan Smith, Nick Clegg, Cheryl Gillan and Dame Margaret Beckett while I was writing up the summary and analysis. I will post the highlights of their speeches shortly.

UPDATE: Hilary Benn, the Labour chair of the Commons Brexit committee, said in his speech that, although he was pro-remain, he thought MPs should respect the result of the referendum.

Though it pains me to say it, we are leaving the European Union and our task now is to try and bring people together. And that means that, whether we voted leave or we voted remain, we have a responsibility to hold in our minds the views and the concerns and the hopes of everyone in this country - whether they voted leave or remain.

The supreme court, rightly in my view, decided that a decision of this magnitude should be taken by parliament not by the executive.

But with that power comes a responsibility - to respect the outcome of the referendum however much some of us may disagree with it. This is about democracy, it is about faith in our politics.

He also criticised the government for not publishing a white paper, or an economic analysis of the impact of Brexit. “This is not the way to do things and it is an attitude that has to change,” he said.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader and former work and pensions secretary, responded to Kenneth Clarke’s claim that leave campaigner had an Alice in Wonderland vision of what it would be like outside the EU. He said:

I would say we are not the [Mad] Hatter’s tea party, I think the Hatter’s tea party is sitting in the opposition at the moment. It’s not known who the mouse is or who the hatter is but I’m sure they’ll tell us later on.

Nick Clegg, the former Lib Dem leader and former deputy prime minister, claimed Theresa May turned down a soft Brexit compromise offer from Germany involving and “emergency brake” on immigration. See 4.42pm for more details.

Dame Margaret Beckett, the Labour former foreign secretary, said a transitional deal was essential.

These negotiations that we trigger with this bill will be extraordinarily difficult and they will be very time consuming. I personally do not think for a second that they can be concluded within two years and I don’t think anybody who has ever negotiated anything would. It will be vital therefore to allow us to make preparation for possible transitional arrangements.

Updated

Opening of the article 50 bill debate - Summary and analysis

So far this hasn’t been a debate that really carries the full weight of the historical choice that is being taken. Kenneth Clarke’s speech was superb, but the two opening speeches, from David Davis, the Brexit secretary, and Sir Keir Starmer, his Labour opposite number, were underwhelming. Neither of them had anything particularly revealing to announce, and the passion in what they had to say was a bit muted. Perhaps the debate will liven up more as it goes along.

Here are the key points from the opening speeches.

  • Starmer said Labour wanted the government to guarantee the rights of EU nationals living in the UK now, unilaterally, because attempts to reach a deal on this with other EU countries have so far failed. The government wants a deal that will guarantee the rights of EU nationals living in the UK as well as those of Britons living on the continent. But, Starmer, told MPs:

That has not worked and now the prime minister should act unilaterally to give assurance to those EU nationals living in this country.

  • Davis said the government might seek to retain some link with Euratom, the European body that regulates the civil nuclear industry. The government’s explanatory notes to the article 50 bill make it clear that leaving the EU also means leaving Euratom. In the debate Labour’s John Woodcock said this could put thousands of jobs at a new nuclear power station in Cumbria at risk. He asked Davis to keep an open mind on staying in Euratom, telling him:

There is a danger that there will be years of uncertainty that could put at risk the 21,000 new jobs which are slated to come as part of the Moorside development [in Cumbria], as well as many others across the UK.

Davis said he understood Woodcock’s point. And he hinted that the UK could remain linked to Euratom. He said:

If it is not possible to come to a conclusion with some sort of relationship with Euratom, then we will no doubt be able to do one with the international atomic energy authority, possibly the most respectable international body in the world.

  • Starmer said Labour wanted Britain to stay in various EU agencies. The ones he cited were the European aviation safety agency, the European medicines agency, Europol or Eurojust. (See 1.24pm.)
  • Starmer said this bill was “very difficult” for Labour because so many Labour MPs wanted to stay in the EU. But the party had to accept the result of the referendum, he said:

We share values and identity with the EU. But we failed to persuade, we lost the referendum. Yes, the result was close, yes, there were lies and half-truths - none worse than the false promise of 350 million a week to the NHS.

Yes, technically the referendum is not legally binding but the result was not technical - it was deeply political. And politically the notion that the referendum was merely a consultation exercise to inform parliament holds no water.

When I was imploring people up and down the country to vote in the referendum and vote to remain, I told them their vote really mattered, that a decision was going to be made. I was not inviting them to express a view.

And although we’re fiercely internationalist, fiercely pro-European, we in the Labour party are, above all, democrats.

  • Kenneth Clarke, the Conservative former chancellor, said that he would vote against the bill and that he did not see why pro-Europeans like himself should have to accept the result of the referendum. He told MPs:

Let me give an analogy in explaining the position for members of parliament after this referendum. I have fought Lord knows how many election over the past 50 years and I have always advocated voting Conservative. The British public in their wisdom have occasionally failed to take my advice and they have actually by a majority voted Labour. And I have found myself here facing a Labour government.

I do not recall an occasion where I was told it was now my democratic duty to support Labour policies under Labour governments on the other side of the House. That proposition would have been treated with ridicule and scorn.

Clarke also mocked the idea that leaving the single market and the customs union would be good for the economy.

We are combining withdrawal from the single market and the customs union with this great new globalised future, which offers tremendous opportunities for us. Apparently you follow the rabbit down the hole and you emerge in a wonderland where suddenly countries around the world are queuing up to give us trading advantages and access to their markets that previously we had never been able to achieve as part of the European Union. Nice men like President Trump and President Erdogan are just impatient to abandon their normal protectionism and give us access.

Don’t let me be too cynical - I hope that is right. I want the best outcome for the United Kingdom from this process. No doubt there is somewhere a Hatter holding a tea party with a dormouse.

  • Clarke suggested Enoch Powell might be comfortable with the modern Conservative party.

I feel the spirit of my former colleague - who I rather respected, apart from one or two extreme views - my former colleague Enoch Powell, the best speaker of the Eurosceptic cause I’ve probably ever heard in this House of Commons. If he was here he would probably find it amazing to believe that his party had become Eurosceptic and rather mildly anti-immigrant in a strange way in 2016, and I’m afraid on that I haven’t followed them and I don’t intend to do so.

  • Davis said MPs who voted against the bill would be defying the wishes of the people. He told MPs:

The eyes of the nation are on this chamber as we consider this Bill. For many years there’s been a creeping sense in the country - and not just this country - that politicians say one thing and do another.

We voted to give the people the chance to determine our future at a referendum; now we must honour our side of the agreement - to vote to deliver on the result. So really we are considering that very simple question - do we trust the people or not?

  • John Bercow, the Speaker, announced that the SNP’s reasoned amendment will be put to a vote tomorrow night. Four other reasoned amendments will not be put a vote. (See 12.33pm.) Defending his party’s amendment, Stephen Gethins, the SNP’s Europe spokesman, said:

Europe is where our future still lies. One where we tackle inequality, climate change, research, welcome refugees, give young people the opportunities – pooling our sovereignty with like-minded states.

That is the kind of Scotland I believe in and one where we work as a true partner of equals with the other States of the UK and Europe.

Passing this bill would turn its back on the progress we have made and disrespect the devolution settlement.

This is a backward and damaging step. It is an act of constitutional and economic sabotage and I cannot and will not back it.

Updated

The “front bench” speeches are now over. (Stephen Gethins does not sit on the front bench, but he is allowed extra time as the SNP spokesman.) John Bercow now imposes a six-minute limit on speeches.

Bill Cash, the Conservatives, goes next. He says that he has been campaigning for this for 30 years. When the Single European Act was being passed, he tried to include an amendment making UK law sovereign. His amendment was not called. But the article 50 bill now implements what he wanted, he says.

He says the bill represents a landmark in British history.

For me, this referendum was a massive, peaceful revolution by consent of historic proportions. This bill, at last, endorses that revolution.

From the 17th century right the way through our history, through the Corn Laws, through the Parliamentary Reform Act, which gave the vote to the working class, the Suffragettes, who got the vote in 1928, and then again in the period of appeasement, these have all been great benchmarks of British history.

Updated

Gethins says Scotland having to share Trident when it does not want it is not sovereignty. And being taken out of the EU when the country did not vote for it is not sovereignty either, he says.

He says Europe is where the future lies.

MPs should vote for the SNP amendment (see 12.33pm), he says. Otherwise voting for this bill is a backward step, he says.

Sheryll Murray, a Conservative, asks how the government can be expected to produce a 670-page white paper on a two-clause bill.

Gethins says he would settle for something shorter.

He says the explanatory notes to the bill say it is not expected to have financial implications. That is a brave assumption, he says.

Stephen Gethins' speech

Stephen Gethins, the SNP’s Europe spokesman, is speaking now.

He praises Kenneth Clarke’s speech, and says he is glad that Clarke will be voting with the SNP tomorrow.

He says the government should have published its white paper before the debate.

Holding up a copy of the SNP government’s white paper, he says this is what a proper white paper looks like. It contained 670 pages, he says.

A Tory MP points out that that white paper did not say what currency an independent Scotland would use. Jacob Rees-Mogg, another Conservative, says the Scottish people gave it a “raspberry”.

Stephen Gethins.
Stephen Gethins. Photograph: BBC

Clarke is now paraphrasing Edmund Burke. Burke said, if MPs do not vote with their consciences, they are betraying their constituents, not serving them, he says.

Clarke finishes. Some MPs applaud by clapping, which is something that only happens rarely in the Commons because it is not technically allowed.

Here are some MPs praising his speech.

From Labour’s Angela Eagle

From Labour’s Ben Bradshaw

From Labour’s Liz McInnes

From the SNP’s Owen Thompson

Clarke says he is normally a loyal Conservative. He last voted against the party over the Lisbon treaty (which the then Labour government backed, but the Tory opposition did not.)

He says he is just being loyal to the policy his party has backed for 50 years.

He says Enoch Powell was the best Eurosceptic speaker he ever heard. Powell would have been surprised to see his party become Eurosceptic and mildly anti-immigrant.

Clarke says he has always urged people to vote Conservative. But sometimes Labour won elections. He cannot recall anyone arguing then that it was his duty to support Labour policies.

But this is what people are telling him now. People are claiming he is being an “enemy of the people” by standing by what he supported during the campaign.

He says he is sure that none of the hardline Eurosceptics would have accepted the result if they had lost. If he were ever to see Bill Cash turn up in the Commons and vote for the EU, he would change his mind, he says.

Clarke says leaving the EU will be a “very, very bad move”, especially for our children and grandchildren.

Brexit is “baffling” to other countries around the world.

He address the claim that he should back the bill because people voted for Brexit in the referendum.

Fortunately, he says, he has always been opposed to referendums throughout his career (so he is being consistent). He says he does not think it is appropriate to decide so many complicated issues in such a fashion.

Other countries don’t use referendums, he says.

He says during the campaign both sides were “pathetic”. He and his friend David Davis assure themselves that neither of them used some of the “dafter” arguments used on both sides. He cites the £350m a week for the NHS claim, and the claim that Brexit would require an emergency budget.

I won’t comment on the nature of the campaign; those arguments that got publicity in the national media on both sides - both sides - were on the whole fairly pathetic.

I have agreed in conversation with [David Davis] that he and I can both tell ourselves that neither of us used the dafter arguments being used by the people were allied with, where there was not a serious debate. I don’t recall £350m a week for the health service coming from the secretary of state for Brexit and I didn’t say we were going to have a budget to put up income tax - all quite pathetic.

Updated

Clarke says Britain has contributed considerably to the development of the EU. It played a big role in promoting the single market, he says.

Kenneth Clarke's speech

Kenneth Clarke, the Conservative former chancellor, says he will be voting against the bill.

He says, given Labour’s inability to oppose the bill, he is the first MP to speak in favour of Britain staying in the EU.

He says his political career has coincided with EU membership. He started his career backing Harold Macmillan’s campaign to join. And his last parliament could be the one in which he leaves.

  • Clarke hints that he may retire as an MP at the end of this parliament.

UPDATE: Actually, megs in the comments BTL points out that Clarke has previously said this will be his last parliament.

Kenneth Clarke.
Kenneth Clarke. Photograph: BBC

Updated

Starmer says he repects the views of those Labour MPs who cannot vote to trigger article 50.

He says MPs have to respect the views of the electorate.

But he says they have to deliver a Brexit that works not just for the 52% who voted for Brexit, but for everyone.

Starmer says Labour wants UK to stay in some EU agencies

Starmer says Theresa May has said the UK should not try to retain membership of bits of the EU.

But that is wrong, he says, as the concerns raised about Euratom earlier shows.

He also asks why the UK would want to leave the European aviation safety agency, the European medicines agency, Europol or Eurojust.

Why would we want to be outside the European Aviation Safety Agency which certifies aircraft before they are allowed to fly? Why would we want to be outside of the European Medicines Agency which ensures all medicines in the EU are safe and effective?

  • Starmer says Labour wants UK to stay in some EU agencies.

Updated

Anna Soubry, the Conservative, puts it to Starmer that all options should be open to MPs when they vote on the Brexit deal after it is concluded. She says:

Do you share my concerns that at the end of this process if there is no deal that has been struck, all options must remain open and it will be for this place and not for the Government to decide what happens next?

Starmer says Labour wants to ensure that there is “meaningful” vote at that point.

Updated

The Spectator’s Isabel Hardman posted this on Twitter.

And that prompted this comment from the SNP MP Ian Blackford.

Starmer says he accepts that the government has tried to make progress on the rights of EU nationals living in the UK.

But that approach has not worked, he says.

He says he has had EU nationals in his constituency surgery in tears. He expects other MPs have had the same experience.

The government should now unilaterally give EU nationals living in the UK the right to stay, he says.

  • Starmer says government should unilaterally give EU nationals living in the UK the right to stay.

Starmer says when he campaigned in the referendum, he told people they were taking a decision. He did not say they were just expressing a view.

Labour is internationalist, he says. But above all they are democrats. So they must accept the result of the referendum, he says.

But Labour will not just let the government do whatever it wants.

It has tabled amendments, requiring regular parliamentary scrutiny of the bill.

Here is the summary of the Labour amendments that the party produced in a news release last week. (Bold type from Labour.)

1 - Allow a meaningful vote in Parliament on the final Brexit deal. Labour’s amendment would ensure that the House of Commons has the first say on any proposed deal and that the consent of Parliament would be required before the deal is referred to the European Council and Parliament.

2 - Establish a number of key principles the Government must seek to negotiate during the process, including protecting workers’ rights, securing full tariff and impediment free access to the Single Market.

3 - Ensure there is robust and regular Parliamentary scrutiny by requiring the Secretary of State to report to the House at least every two months on the progress being made on negotiations throughout the Brexit process

4 - Guarantee legal rights for EU nationals living in the UK. Labour has repeatedly called for the Government to take this step, and this amendment would ensure EU citizens’ rights are not part of the Brexit negotiations.

5 - Require the Government to consult regularly with the governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland throughout Brexit negotiations. Labour’s amendment would put the Joint Ministerial Committee (JMC) on a statutory footing and require the UK Government to consult the JMC at least every two months.

6 - Require the Government to publish impact assessments conducted since the referendum of any new proposed trading relationship with the EU. This amendment seeks to ensure there is much greater clarity on the likely impact of the Government’s decision to exit the Single Market and seek new relationship with the Customs Union

7 - Ensure the Government must seek to retain all existing EU tax avoidance and evasion measures post-Brexit

Keir Starmer's speech

Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, is speaking now.

This is a short bill and a simple one, he says. But for Labour it is a very difficult bill.

This provokes lots of jeering. He urges MPs to be courteous.

Labour is internationalist and pro-European, he says. It believes in international collaboration and the rule of law. That is why it campaigned to stay in the EU.

But they lost the referendum, he says.

Yes, there were lies and half truths, none worse than the claim that leaving the EU would release £350m a week for the NHS, he says.

Sir Keir Starmer.
Sir Keir Starmer. Photograph: BBC

Davis says MPs must pass this legislation swiftly.

The eyes of the nation are on this chamber as it considers this bill, he says.

MPs gave the decision to the public. Now they must honour their side of the agreement and implement what the people decided.

He commends the bill to the House, he says. “Trust the people.”

Davis says there must be no attempts to remain in the EU, no attempts to remain in by the back door and no second referendum.

The SDLP’s Alasdair McDonnell says Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU. But it does not have devolved bodies at the moment (because there is an election underway).

Davis says the government has guaranteed that it will retain the common travel area.

And, although there is no Northern Ireland executive, ministers are still in place. They attend joint ministerial committee meetings.

Davis says the government has paid “a great deal of attention” to the proposals from the devolved assemblies.

And he says the government is ready to do a deal “now” on the rights of EU nationals to remain in the UK after Brexit if other EU countries agree.

The Lib Dem Tom Brake asks when the government will publish its assessment of the impact of leaving on jobs.

Davis says the claims made by people like Brake about the economic impact of Brexit during the referendum turned out to be wrong.

Davis says, since the government will move the entire EU acquis (body of EU law) into UK law, MPs will get the chance to vote on any changes from EU law.

He says he views the terms hard Brexit and soft Brexit as “terms of propaganda”.

Davis says the government has set out its objectives for the Brexit negotiations.

He says the white paper with the government’s plan for Brexit will be published soon, “as soon as is reasonably possible”.

Chris Philp, the Conservative, says his former Oxford physics tutor asked him to lobby the government to see if it could delay leaving Euratom.

Davis says the government has got two years to negotiate withdrawal, implying that further delay would be unnecessary.

Davis says the explanatory notes to the bill say that leaving the EU also involves leaving Euratom.

The Commons library briefing paper I mentioned earlier (see 12.30pm) goes into this subject in some detail. Here is an extract.

Euratom regulates the civil nuclear industry, including safeguards for nuclear materials and technology, disposal of nuclear waste, ownership of nuclear fuel, and research and development (for instance its major nuclear fusion projects).

Euratom is a separate legal entity from the EU, under the 1957 Euratom Treaty, but it is governed by the EU’s institutions (including the Court of Justice of the EU).

Remaining in Euratom after leaving the EU “would entail partial membership of EU institutions and would leave significant areas of UK law subject to directives and regulations made in Brussels and (ultimately) interpreted in Luxembourg” ...

The Euratom Treaty does not have its own provisions on withdrawal. However, it has been amended to state that Article 50 TEU applies to the Euratom Treaty, with the substitution of the words Euratom and Euratom Treaty where appropriate. This now appears as Article 106a of the Euratom Treaty ...

It is hard to envisage how the UK could continue as a Member of Euratom, even for a transitional period, once it has left the EU. Because Euratom uses the EU institutions, the UK would have to find a way to remain part of those institutions where Euratom was concerned. And also the Euratom Treaty states that it applies only on the territory of the EU Member States (Article 198).

David Davis's speech

David Davis, the Brexit secretary, opens the debate.

His voice is hoarse, and so he says he will be taking fewer interventions than usual.

He starts with the point he briefed overnight, about how the bill just implements a decision already taken by the people. (See 10.33am.)

So it is a straightforward bill, he says.

He summarises what the two clauses mean.

David Davis.
David Davis. Photograph: BBC

John Bercow, the speaker, says that he has selected the SNP amendment to be put to a vote at the end of the debate tomorrow. (See 12.33pm.)

He says 99 backbench MPs want to speak in the debate today. So there will be a “tough time limit”, he says.

Philip Davies has finally finished. But he does not try to call a vote opposing Nusrat Ghani’s bill.

Nusrat Ghani, a Conservative, has finished proposing her 10-minute rule bill tackling so-called honour killings. MPs expected to be able to move on to the article 50 debate, but the Conservative Philip Davies has got up to give a speech against Ghani’s bill. He says he is against it because it does not cover violence against men too. It is fair to say he does not seem to have the sympathy of the House.

Updated

The Labour MP Conor McGinn has written a blog explaining why, reluctantly, he will vote to trigger article 50.

The 5 reasoned amendments tabled at second reading

When a bill gets a second reading in the House of Commons opposition parties can decide simply to vote against. But normally they also table a “reasoned amendment”, saying why the bill should not get a second reading.

MPs usually vote on one reasoned amendment before they go on to vote on whether or not the bill should get a second reading. Reasoned amendments almost always fail, but they enable opposition parties to put their objections to a bill on the record.

Unusually, with the article 50 bill, five reasoned amendments have been tabled. Here they are in full.

The speaker, John Bercow, decides which amendments, if any, get put to a vote. This is normally announced at the start of the debate and, with the Labour front bench not tabling one, it is likely he will call a vote on the SNP version. All the votes will be tomorrow, at 7pm.

Here are the five reasoned amendments on the order paper.

The SNP one (tabled by the SNP’s Angus Robertson and signed by 60 other MPs from the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the SDLP and the Greens)

That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill as the Government has set out no provision for effective consultation with the devolved administrations on implementing Article 50, has yet to publish a White Paper detailing the Government’s policy proposals, has refused to give a guarantee on the position of EU nationals in the UK, has left unanswered a range of detailed questions covering many policy areas about the full implications of withdrawal from the single market and has provided no assurance that a future parliamentary vote will be anything other than irrelevant, as withdrawal from the European Union followed two years after the invoking of Article 50 if agreement is not reached in the forthcoming negotiations, unless they are prolonged by unanimity.

The Green one (tabled by the Green MP Caroline Lucas, but also backed by MPs from the SDLP, Plaid Cymru and SNP)

That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill because it fails to provide enduring legal protection to the economic and social interests of the people of the United Kingdom in the event of exit from the European Union, fails in particular to guarantee the UK’s future membership of both the Single Market and the customs union, essential to the future prosperity of the UK, thereby failing to ensure continuation of free movement and the existing reciprocal rights enjoyed by EU citizens living in the UK and UK citizens living in EU member states, fails to guarantee maintenance of environmental regulation at least as strong as current EU regulation, fails to prevent a race to the bottom on corporate taxation and on workers’ and consumers’ rights, fails to guarantee young people rights to work, travel and study in the EU at least equal to those they enjoy now, otherwise fails to adequately address the immense constitutional implications of withdrawal from the EU, including the future of the Good Friday Agreement, fails to adequately address the almost certain need for a transitional arrangement with the EU, and fails to guarantee a Ratification Referendum on any withdrawal agreements negotiated with the other EU member states.

The rebel Labour one (tabled by the Labour MP Heidi Alexander and signed by 21 other Labour MPs, as well as by three SDLP MPs)

That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill because the Government has failed to give assurances which safeguard British interests in the single market, and because the Government has failed to provide assurance that either Parliament or the UK electorate will have the ability to determine whether the UK should seek to withdraw from the single market in accordance with Article 127 of the EEA Agreement.

The Lib Dem one (signed by all nine Lib Dem MPs apart from Norman Lamb and Greg Mulholland)

That this House declines to give the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill a Second Reading because it does not provide a mechanism for the people of the United Kingdom to have a vote, prior to the UK’s departure from the European Union, on the terms of the new relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union, because the Government has failed to provide an accompanying white paper detailing a plan or set of principles upon which the United Kingdom Government will seek to negotiate with the European Union, and because the Government has deliberately not tabled a money resolution in respect of this Bill, thereby hampering the elected representatives of the people from amending the Bill to include issues at the heart of public concerns with Brexit.

The Plaid Cymru one (tabled by Plaid’s Hywel Williams but also backed by MPs from the SDLP, the SNP and the Greens)

That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill as the Government has failed to ensure continued full and unfettered access to the European single market, through participation in the EEA and membership of the EFTA, and has set out no requirement for the implementation of Article 50 to be endorsed by the devolved Parliaments.

MPs debate article 50 bill

MPs will be starting the article 50 bill debate in about 10 minutes. Business questions ends at 12.30, and then Nusrat Ghani will move a 10-minute rule bill on violence against women. The debate itself should start at about 12.40pm.

The House of Commons library has produced a 50-page briefing paper on the bill.

Here is a summary. And here is the full paper (pdf).

On 17 February 1972 MPs concluded their debate at the second reading of the European communities bill, the legislation taking the UK into what was then the EEC. Here is the Hansard report of the debate.

Harold Wilson, the Labour leader, explained why his party was voting against. Here is an extract from his speech.

The biggest issue of all facing the House is that which has dominated every issue of parliamentary freedom for over 700 years—control over the levying of taxes and the appropriation of Exchequer funds, the actions of this House and its paramouncy in Committee of Ways and Means and in Committee of Supply. The Bill in a very real sense transfers a major part of parliamentary control of taxation and appropriation to Brussels, which was not contemplated on anything like this scale when the White Paper of 1967 was laid. Since then we have the whole take-over, food levies on a rapidly rising price scale, all our customs duties—the prerogative of this House from ancient time—and the proceeds of a 1 per cent. value-added tax ...

Even if we had today been debating terms which carried the full-hearted consent of the British people—which the Prime Minister manifestly has not got, despite his election pledges, as he has not got the full-hearted consent of Parliament, or we would not have seen him involved in the way he has been this week—all that apart, even if we could all have gone forward on these terms, the Bill raises fundamental issues about the rights of the House and about our parliamentary democracy. We have our duties as parliamentarians, as servants of this House, as inheritors of the rights and powers of this House in our democracy. Because this Government in this Bill treat those duties, those rights and those powers as of no account, we shall cast our vote tonight unhesitatingly against the Bill.

The debate was wound up by Edward Heath, the prime minister. Here is an extract from his speech in favour.

I have dealt with many of the major issues raised in the debate. I will deal now in particular with one matter. As the House knows, I have always believed that our prosperity and our influence in the world would benefit from membership. I believed until recently that we could carry on fairly well outside, but I believe now that with developments in world affairs, and the speed at which they are moving, it will become more and more difficult for Britain alone. Faced with this prospect of change, I do not believe that any Prime Minister could come to this House and say, “We have secured the chance to join the European Community; we have signed the Treaty of Accession; we have the opportunity of full membership; but I now advise this House to throw them away.” I do not believe that any Prime Minister could say that, and it follows from what I have said that this Bill is not a luxury which we can dispense with if need be.

It has been a central policy of three successive Governments, irrespective of party, and of all three main parties in this House that Britain should join the European Communities if suitable arrangements could be negotiated. By a large majority this House decided in principle last October that Britain should join the Community on the basis of the arrangements negotiated by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy. Any Government which thereafter failed to give legislative effect to that clear decision of this House would be abdicating its responsibilities.

Edward Heath in July 1971 holding a copy of the white paper on joining the common market.
Edward Heath in July 1971 holding a copy of the white paper on joining the common market. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

According to the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn, the government is planning to publish its Brexit white paper on Thursday.

Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, has put out a press statement saying that, if Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK does go ahead, as a protest he will not attend the state dinner at Buckingham Palace.

Osborne tells Trump that 'demonising' refugees 'not the answer'

Yesterday it was announced that George Osborne, the former chancellor, has taken up an academic fellowship at the McCain Institute, the organisation set up by the Republican senator John McCain, a critic of Donald Trump.

In his first blog as the institute’s inaugural Kissinger Fellow, Osborne has implicitly attacked Trump’s travel ban. He writes (bold type inserted by me):

John McCain and Henry Kissinger remind us that the world’s problems will quickly become our own problems if we leave it to others alone to sort them. Erecting trade barriers with our neighbours, making an enemy of our open societies, demonising those seeking a better life, turning away refugees, unravelling the institutions that sustain the west, are not the answer. If the Statue of Liberty turns its back on the world, if Britain retreats behind its island shores, then it is not just others who depend on us who will pay a price – the heavy cost will fall on our own citizens too.

According to the Press Association, Osborne will receive a stipend by the McCain Institute, as well as receiving money to cover staff support, travel, convening and conferencing costs.

George Osborne.
George Osborne. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

Davis says article 50 bill 'simply about implementing decision already made'

Last night the department for exiting the EU released a very short extract from what David Davis, the Brexit secretary, will say in his speech opening the debate this afternoon. He will tell MPs:

It is not a bill about whether or not the UK should leave the EU, or how it should do so. It is simply about implementing a decision already made, a point of no return already passed. We asked the people of the UK if they wanted to leave the EU; they decided they did.

In a briefing note the department also sought to downplay the significance of the bill, saying that it was just one several opportunities for MPs to scrutnise Brexit. The note said:

This is one of many moments for parliament to scrutinise the UK’s exit from the EU. A white paper, setting out the negotiation principles, and the great repeal bill, transposing EU law into UK law, have also been announced and will shortly be brought before parliament. The government has also committed to holding a vote on the final deal with the EU, once negotiations are complete.

David Davis arriving at No 10 for cabinet this morning.
David Davis arriving at No 10 for cabinet this morning. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters

For anyone who is interested, here is the 85-page document (pdf) containing all the amendments that have been tabled to the article 50 bill

Voting down article 50 bill would lead to May calling election and winning bigger majority, says shadow Brexit minister

The Labour MP Matthew Pennycook, a shadow Brexit minister and MP for Greenwich and Woolwich (which voted strongly remain) has written an interesting blog explaining why (unlike Owen Smith) he will not be voting against the article 50 bill. Here’s an extract:

Even if the parliamentary arithmetic was such that defeating the bill was a realistic possibility, I am not convinced it would be the right course of action. To seek to nullify the referendum result by parliamentary means risks, in my view, creating further social division, fuelling the rise of the far-right, adding to the alienation already felt by a significant section of the electorate and perhaps even sparking civil unrest in some parts of the country. As such, I respectfully disagree with those who maintain that, whatever the potential negative social and political implications, MPs should seek to overturn the result.

It is also worth considering what would happen if the bill were voted down on Wednesday. Far from securing our place in the EU or chastening the hardline Brexiteers, it would almost certainly trigger a snap general election fought solely on the issue of Brexit that in all likelihood would return a Conservative government with an increased majority to enact any form of departure they wish – an outcome I think the present Commons makeup gives us a reasonable chance of avoiding.

MPs will debate the article 50 bill’s second reading today and tomorrow and the bill’s remaining stages will take place on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

In the Lords yesterday Lord Taylor of Holbeach, the government chief whip, said the Lords expected to get the bill either on Wednesday night or Thursday next week.

There is a half-term recesss the following week, and Taylor said peers would have their second reading debate on Monday 20 February and Tuesday 21.

Two days have been set aside for the bill’s committee stage the following week, he said, on Monday 27 February and Wednesday 1 March.

And the bill is then scheduled to have its report stage and third reading on Tuesday 7 March.

Taylor would not answer a question about what might happen if the Lords passes amendments that the Commons then rejects, but this would trigger “ping pong” - the process that involves a bill shuttling to and for between the two Houses until one side backs down. In theory that could take place on Wednesday 8 March, but that date is set aside for the budget.

In the Times today (paywall) Henry Zeffman and Michael Savage say Theresa May would like to option of being able to trigger article 50 on Thursday 9 March, as she will be able to do if the bill is on the statute book by then. They say:

All 28 heads of government from EU member states will meet on March 9 at the two-day European council summit in Malta, giving Mrs May an opportunity to invoke the clause. On March 8 Philip Hammond, the chancellor, will present his first budget.

Ministers are thought to be sensitive to invoking article 50 in the last week of March — March 25 will be the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the founding charter of what became the EU.

The row about Theresa May’s decision to invite Donald Trump to the UK for a state visit shows no signs of abating. But, for the sake of clarity, we are covering that story on our separate Trump travel ban live blog, which my colleague Matthew Weaver is now writing.

It includes details of how Lord Ricketts, the former Foreign Office permanent secretary, has suggested delaying Trump’s state visit by up to three years to save the Queen embarrassment.

Government lying about how easy Brexit will be, says Owen Smith

Forty five years after MPs debated the bill that took Britain into what was then the EEC, the moment that campaigners have either been longing for or dreading has finally arrived; MPs will this afternoon start debating a piece of legislation that will take us out.

The bill itself is remarkably short, running to just 137 words. It covers a four-page sheet which I’ve got on my desk, but one page is blank, and another page comprises just the title. Here is the text of the bill itself.

Beside it I have also got a rather longer document, the notice of amendments. This is the list of all the amendments that have been tabled by MPs and opposition parties and it runs to 85 pages. MPs will debate them, and vote on a select few, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week. That, in theory, is when the debate should get most interesting, because at that point the bill can be changed.

Except now it is looking as looking as if the bill may pass the Commons without any significant amendments being passed at all. My colleagues Rowena Mason and Anushka Asthana explain more here in their story.

One factor is that Tory MPs who had been threatening to cause trouble seem to be satisfied, now that the government has agreed to publish a white paper on its Brexit plans. Nicky Morgan, the former education secretary, has raised concerns about Brexit before (she was strongly pro-remain), but she told the Today programme this morning she was not planning to back any amendments to the bill. She told the programme:

My instinct is no at the moment, not to support any amendments.

Morgan was on the programme with Owen Smith, the Labour MP who challenged Jeremy Corbyn unsuccessfully for the leadership last summer. He said he thought the article 50 bill vote would be the most important he would ever cast and he said that he would be voting against, defying the Labour whip for the first time in his career. Asked why, he explained:

I don’t think democracy started or ended on June 23 and, in my view, the decisions to leave the European Union is going to leave the constituents I represent worse off. And it is also playing into a politics that is meaner, meaner spirited, than we’ve had in our country traditionally, and I think it is time for the Labour party to stand up for people and to stand up for what we believe is genuinely in their interests.

He also accused the government of lying about Brexit.

And I fear that we are still being lied to, lied to during the referendum campaign and lied to still about how easy this is going to be or about the benefits that we will see on the other side of Brexit.

When he was asked if he was really accusing Theresa May of lying, he explained:

I think she’s dissembling when she says thinks like ‘I’m going to make Britain a global trading nation’. I’m sitting here in the middle of London, the most cosmopolitan, global city in the world. We are the sixth largest economy in the world. We are one of the great trading nations and have been for centuries. The notion the European Union has held us back in that regard and that we are going to suddenly overcome our long-term productivity problems by leaving and becoming even more global is, frankly, for the birds.

The debate starts at about 12.40pm and we will be covering it in detail until it ends at 12pm tonight. MPs do not actually vote tomorrow, but the opening speeches may reveal more details about the government and the opposition’s approach to Brexit and, given all that is at stake, the debate itself is set to be a momentous parliamentary occasion.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.45am: Peter Clarke, the chief inspector of prisons, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee.

9.45am: Nick Gibb, the education minister, gives evidence to the Commons education committee.

Around 12.40pm: MPs begin debating the second reading of the European Union (notification of withdrawal) bill. The debate will go on until midnight and then carry on tomorrow, with MPs voting at 7pm on Wednesday.

This morning I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, but later I will be focusing mostly or entirely on the article 50 debate.

You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.

Updated

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