Party leader says government does not have a blank cheque to set up an offshore tax haven in Britain

The government does not have “a blank cheque” to push through its vision of Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn has said, despite the overwhelming Commons vote to pass the article 50 bill without a single amendment.



The Labour leader said there was little his party could have done about the bill, given its limited scope, but he would continue to push for concessions and changes as the Brexit process continued.

“There was a referendum,” he told BBC1’s Breakfast programme. “There was a decision by the people of this country and we support the result of the referendum, and have to carry it out.

“It doesn’t mean we agree with the government on the economy for the future. It does mean we have to build good relations with everybody across Europe.”

'Real fight starts now': Jeremy Corbyn's Brexit tweet prompts bruising response Read more

Insisting the government had already made concessions over both the fact of the article 50 bill and over a parliamentary vote on the final Brexit deal, Corbyn said there was scope to shape the process.

“The government does not have a blank cheque to set up an offshore tax haven in Britain,” he said. “All that it has is authority to proceed with negotiations, which is what the referendum was about.”

The bill was passed by 494 votes to 122, and will now go to the House of Lords, where Labour and Liberal Democrat peers will press for concessions on key issues including the status of EU citizens living in the UK.

Ministers will place significant pressure on peers not to obstruct or amend the bill, even threatening this could otherwise see the end of the upper chamber in its current form.

A government source said: “If the Lords don’t want to face an overwhelming public call to be abolished they must get on and protect democracy and pass this bill.”

Clive Lewis resigned as shadow business secretary after deciding to go against the three-line whip. He became the fourth shadow cabinet member to step down rather than vote in favour.

Corbyn denied there was a crisis in Labour over the issue. “It’s not a disaster,” he said. “The majority of Labour MPs voted to trigger article 50. Fifty-odd voted against it, mainly on the basis of a strong message from their own constituents. On all the other votes there is unity, on all the other campaigning there is unity.”

Asked about his statement in a tweet that the “real fight” for Brexit starts now, Corbyn argued there was little that could have been achieved with the article 50 bill.



“Do you not understand? This was a one-clause bill,” he said. “A one-clause bill that authorised the government to start negotiating, and recognised the result of the referendum.”

Corbyn also dismissed reports that he had set a timetable to step down, calling it “fake news”. “I’m really surprised the BBC is reporting fake news,” he said. “There is no news. There is no news.”

There was, however, anguish among some Labour MPs about amendments not being passed. Harriet Harman, who had proposed guarantees for overseas EU nationals in the UK, said the failure of this meant these people were being used as “human shields” for Brexit negotiations.

“There’s now going to be months if not years of uncertainty; we could have ended that. There’s clear evidence that gangmasters are exploiting people,” she said.

Brexit supporters welcomed the bill’s passage through the Commons. Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, who campaigned for decades for an EU referendum, said: “I never thought I’d see the day where the House of Commons overwhelmingly voted for Britain to leave the European Union.”



The Brexit secretary, David Davis, said: “We’ve seen a historic vote tonight – a big majority for getting on with negotiating our exit from the EU and a strong, new partnership with its member states.”

Lewis was one of 52 Labour MPs who rebelled against Corbyn’s three-line whip to vote against the legislation, which authorises the government to trigger article 50, the formal process for exiting the EU.

Lewis represents Norwich South, a constituency that voted strongly to remain in the EU, and had been openly agonising about whether he could bring himself to support the legislation.



In his resignation letter, sent before he voted against the whip on Wednesday, Lewis thanked Corbyn for discussing the issue of Brexit in an “open and comradely way”.

But he added: “When I became the MP for Norwich South, I promised my constituents I would be Norwich’s voice in Westminster, not Westminster’s voice in Norwich. I therefore cannot, in all good conscience, vote for something I believe will ultimately harm the city I have the honour to represent, love and call home.

“It is therefore with a heavy heart that I have decided to resign from the shadow cabinet.”

He said he felt he could not vote for the article 50 bill, since Labour had not succeeded in amending it.

“Our party, the Labour party, was right to attempt, through parliament, to win the protections the people of this country need. Unfortunately, despite the progress we did make, we have been unable to secure them,” he wrote.

Widely seen as a rising star on the left of the party, Lewis voted for the bill at its second reading last week, but made it clear that if Labour failed to amend the legislation he could not do so again. When the last potential amendment failed on Wednesday night, Labour issued a statement saying he had stepped down.

Some see him as a potential leadership candidate, who could act as a bridge between the Corbynite wing of the party and the so-called soft left. But in the corridors MPs were being quite disparaging about what some called his “flip-flopping” in recent days about whether he could back the bill.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Diane Abbott was absent from the second reading of the bill. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Diane Abbott, the Hackney North MP who was absent from last week’s second reading, citing a migraine, voted in favour of the bill despite speculation she was concerned about the reaction of her overwhelmingly pro-remain constituents.

In her official response to the vote she said that while she accepted the result of the referendum, “this does not mean that we have to accept Brexit in the haphazard way in which it is being handed to us”.

She continued: “This passage of this bill has been a challenge for Labour. Our MPs represent the top six most passionately pro-leave constituencies, and the six most passionately pro-remain constituencies … I voted for the bill as a loyal supporter of Jeremy Corbyn and a loyal member of the shadow cabinet.”

She later said Brexit was not the leftwing idea imagined by Labour stalwart Tony Benn but a situation more akin to the politics of the US president, Donald Trump.

She told BBC2’s Newsnight programme: “I respect the result of the referendum and no one wanted to thwart it in a perverse kind of way. But we need to be clear, this is not a Tony Benn Brexit, this is Donald Trump Brexit, and it’s got a very ugly side.”

Corbyn will now have to embark on a reshuffle, and must also decide how to treat frontbenchers outside the shadow cabinet, including three of his own whips, who rebelled.

Labour sources said decisions would be made in the next few days.