The Conservative MP Julian Lewis, giving the shortest speech in the debate, lasting just 18 seconds:
Because Brexit should mean Brexit and because no-deal is better than this bad deal, I shall vote no, no and no. Thank you Mr Speaker.
Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, on the MPs embracing no-deal:
What are you playing at? What are you doing? You are not children in the playground, you are legislators. We are playing with people’s lives.
Tory MP Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general, on Cox’s opening statement in the debate:
Entertaining as it was … it filled me with a slight sense of gloom to see that the government had got to such a pass that it had to rely on the skills of a criminal defence advocate to get it out of its difficulties.
The former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab in the closing hours of the debate:
This deal is so demeaning to our country it would inevitably invite – no, demand – reversal by the British people from the moment the ink was dry.
Ken Clarke, the veteran pro-remain Tory MP:
To be fair to my friends who are hardline Brexiteers and always have been, none of them had the slightest intention of taking any notice of the referendum. But it is now a kind of religiously binding commitment.
The SNP leader in the Commons, Ian Blackford, putting forward his amendment with Plaid Cymru that rejects the deal:
There is no such thing as a good Brexit. This government stands accused of putting workers on the dole … as a function of ideology.
The DUP’s Brexit spokesman, Sammy Wilson, on why the party is not backing the deal:
We fought a terrorist campaign to stay part of the United Kingdom. We are not going to allow bureaucrats in Brussels to separate us from the rest of the United Kingdom.
Michael Gove, the environment secretary, evoking the motto of the Stark family from Game of Thrones:
I think if we don’t vote for the deal tonight, in the words of Jon Snow, winter is coming.
