March deadline approved by House of Commons but rifts remain on both sides of the chamber over EU negotiation stategy

Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, has insisted he will hold Theresa May to account over her plans for taking Britain out of the European Union, as MPs overwhelmingly backed a government amendment endorsing the prime minister’s self-imposed March deadline for triggering article 50.

Both sides declared victory after a lively debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday that lasted more than six hours. Starmer, and pro-remain Conservative backbenchers, challenged David Davis, the minister for exiting the EU, to produce a “detailed” picture of his negotiating strategy before article 50 is formally triggered – but a series of interventions from MPs underlined the divisions in both parties.

Article 50: what is the supreme court appeal about? The dispute is over who in the UK has legal authority to formally notify the EU ​formally ​that Britain is beginning its withdrawal ​from the EU ​under article 50 of the treaty on European Union. The government maintains that its executive powers, inherited through what was the royal prerogative and its customary practice of signing international treaties, entitle it to signal to Brussels that the UK will be leaving. The challengers argue that, since many citizens’ rights will be abolished by Brexit, only parliament has the authority to take away rights created by the 1972 European Communities Act.



The Commons passed Labour’s motion calling for “the prime minister to commit to publishing the government’s plan for leaving the EU before article 50 is invoked” by 448 to 75 votes – a majority of 373 – after it was amended by Downing Street to “call on the government to invoke article 50 by 31 March 2017”.

The vote is non-binding but was a highly symbolic moment as it marked the first time MPs had endorsed the government’s Brexit timetable, announced by May at the Conservative party conference. Douglas Carswell, Ukip’s one MP, said it was the end of a “long road”.

The Tory former Cabinet minister and leave supporter Iain Duncan Smith said the vote was a “historic moment” and that the government had called Labour’s bluff: “They have had to vote to give us a date, so that is a real blank cheque for the government. That means that no matter what happens now in parliament, Labour is signed up to the principle that by March 31 next year the government will have been able to invoke article 50.”

More than 20 Labour MPs voted against their own party line to oppose the amendment, amid disquiet about the leadership’s tactics. Some disgruntled backbenchers suggested that scores of Labour MPs had abstained.

Labour MPs defying Starmer’s approach and refusing to back the government’s amendment also included three shadow ministers – Daniel Zeichner, Catherine West and Tulip Siddiq.

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The SNP, Green party MP Caroline Lucas and the Liberal Democrats voted against the motion, with the Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron, suggesting Labour had allowed itself to be “muzzled”.

He tweeted: “Labour & Tories holding hands towards a hard Brexit, refusing to seek the will of the people on the deal. I want democracy not a stitch up.”

However, Starmer sought to show that Labour will use the motion to exert pressure on the government. He said a “late, vague plan” would not be good enough, and he would measure any published negotiating strategy against five tests:

Does it answers key questions such as whether the UK will seek to remain within the customs union and the EU single market?

Does it give enough detail for MPs, including on the Brexit select committee chaired by Hilary Benn, to scrutinise the government’s approach?

Does it provide enough information for the independent Office for Budget Responsibility to make detailed economic forecasts?



Will it address the concerns of the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales?

Does it “have enough detail to build genuine consensus”?

Starmer, the MP for Holborn and St Pancras, stressed the need for the government to act for voters who backed remain in June’s referendum, as well as those who wanted to leave.

“That is an important point, because the future of this country is bound up with the negotiations, and it is wrong in principle for the government to act solely for the 52% – to base its approach on the 52% or a group within the 52%,” he said.

If Labour is not satisfied the tests are met, he said the party would seek to amend the bill that the government is expected to bring to parliament to trigger article 50, if it loses the ongoing supreme court appeal.

Davis insisted the government had made no new concessions by agreeing to support the Labour motion and had always been clear it would keep parliament informed. He said by supporting the amended motion, Labour was “signing up” to triggering article 50.

“Dance on a pin as the shadow spokesman may, that’s what they’re signing up to – the government will invoke article 50 by 31 March 2017,” he said. He added that it had always been his approach to outline the government’s strategy to MPs, so long as it did not undermine the government’s negotiating strategy.

He said the government’s amendment had “laid down an important challenge” to opposition MPs who said they supported the verdict in the referendum but were seeking to “thwart” Brexit.



“We will see today if they’re willing to back the government in getting on with implementing the decision made by the voters of the United Kingdom,” Davis said.

He stressed that the government would need to maintain some secrecy around its aims in the two-year negotiating process, in order to “retain room for manoeuvre, including the ability to give and take, to trade off different interests, to maximise the value of concessions, and to do so without always giving the other side advance notice. We must retain the ability to negotiate with a high degree of agility and speed; the more complex the negotiation, the more parties to it, and the more time-pressured it is, the more important that is.”

Tory backbenchers from both sides of the Brexit divide intervened. Brexit supporter John Redwood said: “As we bring the country together it is important that people do not look for possible or imaginary problems, because we want the strongest possible position to negotiate the best possible answer for the country, and we need to unite to do so.”

Anna Soubry, the fiercely pro-remain campaigner who had led the Conservative rebels against the government, said she would back the motion but remained “nervous and concerned”.

“The debates we now need to have are about the value of the single market – let us thrash it out and hear why some say we should not be in it. Let us talk about the customs union and the peril of tariffs. Let us talk about immigration – the positive benefits of it, and some of the downsides, but let us have these debates and, most importantly, let us take part in that – parliament. We speak for our constituents. We speak for the people.”

The former chancellor Ken Clarke, pointing to the divisions on his own side, cautioned that the government could comply with the motion by simply providing “hints” about its intentions.



“This word ‘plan’ is being used in an extremely vague way, and could cover some of the vague assertions that ministers have been making for the last few weeks. Will the secretary of state accept that the House requires a description – published in a white paper, preferably – of the strategic objectives that the government will pursue,” he said, before going on to suggest ministers “have no idea what the strategy is anyway and don’t agree with each other”. Clarke was the only Conservative MP to vote against the motion.

Several Labour MPs intervened to say that they could not support the amended motion, with Tottenham MP David Lammy saying his remain-supporting constituents would not want him to support triggering article 50.

Ben Bradshaw said he could not support the motion as amended, as it gave the government “a blank cheque to invoke article 50 without any of us being any the wiser about the government’s intentions”.

Nine Labour MPs voted against the amended motion, with 149 in favour. The party has a total of 231 members in the house.

The Labour Manchester mayoral candidate Andy Burnham used his speech in the debate to call on his own party to do a better job of addressing the public’s concerns about immigration.



“There is nothing socialist about a system of open borders that allows multinationals to treat people as commodities and to move them around Europe to drive down labour costs and create a race to the bottom,” he said, in an apparent dig at frontbenchers including the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, who has argued strongly for the benefits of immigration.

He called for his colleagues to “make the argument for an immigration system that allows for greater control and that reduces the numbers coming here, but that does so in a fair way”.

But the former shadow health secretary Heidi Alexander, struck a different note, warning against interpreting it as a rejection of immigration. “My fundamental concern about prioritising immigration over all else is that we run the risk of whipping up even more of the intolerance, division and – let us be honest – hatred that we saw in the referendum campaign,” she said.