Tim Farron says he will join with MPs from other parties and use Lib Dems’ strength in Lords to maximise scrutiny of article 50 bill

The UK’s final Brexit deal must not be decided by “a stitch-up between Whitehall and Brussels”, the Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, has said, promising his party will seek to hold Theresa May’s government to account over the process.

Calling Labour “the most ineffective official opposition in living memory”, Farron said the Lib Dems would seek to unite with MPs from other parties in the wake of Tuesday’s supreme court ruling forcing a parliamentary vote on Brexit so as to maximise scrutiny.

The court decision has left Theresa May facing calls from rebellious MPs within her own party for more of a say over plans to quit the single market and customs union.

While the Liberal Democrats’ aim is to prompt a referendum on the final terms of any deal – a notion dismissed by both the government and Labour – Farron said his party would use its relative strength in the Lords to seek to amend the article 50 bill.



This is expected to be published on Thursday, with a rapid timetable for passage through parliament, after judges from the highest court in the land decided by eight to three that MPs must approve a decision as significant as leaving the EU.

The government should not be allowed to rush through its Brexit legislation without proper debate, Farron told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday.

“We take the view that the vote in June was a vote for departure from the European Union. It was not a vote for destination,” he said. “There should not be a stitch-up between Whitehall and Brussels over the content of our new relationship with Europe. The British people should have this final say.”

Farron added to calls from both Labour and some Tory MPs for ministers to publish a white paper setting out the Brexit plans in detail, calling this “the least the government can do”.

Amid reports that up to a quarter of Labour MPs could defy a party whip and oppose article 50, Farron said those from any party “who have similar amounts of backbone” should vote down the bill if it did not include provision for the public to have a say on the Brexit terms.

“We accept that the government has got a mandate to go and negotiate Brexit,” Farron argued. “We’re not trying to derail last June’s referendum. What we are saying is that the government does not have a mandate, on a very narrow majority, to go and negotiate any result, any outcome that it wants.”



“That is a recipe for dissent, for a complete breakdown in trust in our politics. For the next couple of generations, let’s say, Britain’s relationship with the outside world will be cast because of stitch-ups in the 21st-century equivalent of smoke-filled rooms.”

“If 80% of the British people, say, had voted leave, you could just about justify the government heading for a hard Brexit. But it was such a narrow vote, and to take the most extreme view possible on our new relationship with our European neighbours seems anti-democratic, non-consensual … and not about trying to unite the country.”



The shadow attorney general, Shami Chakrabarti, said that while her party did not seek a referendum on the final deal, it would push for full scrutiny and a parliamentary vote at the end of the process.

“The important thing about yesterday’s decision is that it upheld parliamentary sovereignty as the overarching principle of our constitution,” she told Today.

Part of this should also include a white paper setting out the government’s principles and priorities for the negotiations, Chakrabarti said, “and not just a wish list of everything that you might have if you didn’t come up against any opposition from those that you’re negotiating with.”

“The in-out question is just the beginning. The more difficult questions are yet to come,” she said, adding: “These questions can’t just be left to government to stitch up in negotiations.”

Tuesday’s ruling said it was not for judges to specify what form an act of parliament to trigger article 50 would take.

Delivering his judgment, Lord Neuberger, the president of the supreme court, said: “A notice under article 50(2) could no doubt be very short indeed, but that would not undermine its momentous significance.” The supreme court also ruled that there was no need for the government to wait for consent from the devolved assemblies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Gina Miller, who first brought the case against the government, insisted her challenge was not about trying to stop Britain’s EU exit. “There is no doubt that Brexit is the most divisive issue of a generation. But this case was about the legal process, not politics. Today’s decision has created legal certainty, based on our democratic process and provides the legal foundation for the government to trigger article 50,” she said.



A few hours after the ruling, the Brexit secretary, David Davis, told MPs that the legal decision from Britain’s most senior judges would not block or delay Brexit. “This House voted by six to one to put the decision in the hands of voters, and that bill passed the other place unopposed,” he told the House of Commons, whose legislation could be laid down as early as Thursday.

“So there can be no going back. The point of no return was passed on 23 June last year,” he added, warning MPs and peers not to use the process to try to “thwart the will of the people”.



