At least 30 Labour MPs are expected to defy the whip by voting against triggering Brexit on Wednesday night, with several frontbenchers still agonising about whether to resign in the coming weeks.

The vote will come the day before the government publishes its promised white paper setting out its strategy for withdrawal from the European Union on Thursday. Publication on Thursday was confirmed by Theresa May at prime minister’s questions.



Labour rebels will join the 54 SNP MPs, most Liberal Democrats, the SDLP, the Green MP Caroline Lucas and the Tory MP Ken Clarke in an attempt to stop Theresa May invoking article 50 and starting the process of leaving the EU.

Among the prominent Labour figures preparing to defy the whip are Maria Eagle, Ben Bradshaw and David Lammy, all former ministers.

Jo Stevens and Tulip Siddiq have already resigned from the frontbench in order to vote against Brexit, and there has been speculation about Rachael Maskell, the shadow environment secretary, who said she would make a statement later on Wednesday.

Clive Lewis, the shadow business secretary, has said he will vote with the government on Brexit on Wednesday but will not back the two-clause bill next week if Labour fails to secure any amendments to it.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has made it clear it will not be possible for MPs to stay on the frontbench if they defy a three-line whip on the issue.

The pro-EU Liberal Democrats are also split, with Norman Lamb, the party’s health spokesman and a former leadership challenger, saying he would abstain. The Conservatives are overwhelmingly in favour of triggering article 50 but a small band of rebels could seek to help those who want to secure extra parliamentary scrutiny through amendments.

About 90 MPs are likely to oppose the second reading of the bill, and more could opt to do so at a later stage of the process.

On Wednesday morning Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, said Labour’s fight to shape Brexit would begin in earnest after article 50 was triggered.

“We wanted to stay in the European Union, and we were pretty united around that,” Thornberry said of Labour’s view. “But we lost. The country decided that we should leave the European Union. It was a very serious vote.”

The battle now, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, was to persuade May to go for a Brexit that would not damage the UK economy. “The question is: how do we best fight for that? In our view we have to do as instructed and vote to leave the European Union, but actually the fight begins now,” Thornberry said.

“Theresa May has put forward a contradictory vision. She has talked about having the fullest possible access to the single market, unimpeded by tariffs and red tape. And we agree with her – that’s the vision we have.

“But she also has an alternative vision, where she said that if she didn’t get the deal she wanted, we would be free to set competitive tax rates and … change the basis of Britain’s economic model.”

In a letter seen by the Guardian, the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, has admitted people have urged him to consider resigning to reflect the 75% remain vote in his London constituency, Holborn and St Pancras.

While Labour has tabled a series of amendments to the article 50 bill on issues including a meaningful final parliamentary vote over the Brexit deal, a lack of support from pro-remain Conservatives means none are likely to pass.

“Let’s see what happens,” Thornberry said when asked about the amendments. “But we will be doing everything that we can to ensure that we get these amendments.

“The prime minister does not have a democratic mandate to do whatever she likes with our country. Yes, the public have voted to leave. They have not voted for the contradictory ideas that Theresa May has, and they certainly haven’t voted for her to break the British economic model.”

Thornberry confirmed that the three-line whip would remain in place even if no amendments were passed: “We have said consistently, since the result, that we will not frustrate the will of the British people, and they want to leave.”

The Brexit bill, forced on the government by a supreme court ruling, triggered a passionate hours-long debate in parliament on Tuesday in which MPs from all parties clashed over the question of Britain’s exit from the EU.

Among the MPs voting against the bill will be the former Tory chancellor Clarke. The veteran Conservative delivered an impassioned speech to colleagues on Tuesday about his decision, accusing the Conservative party that he has represented for almost five decades of becoming anti-immigrant.



Clarke told colleagues that even his former colleague Enoch Powell, best known for his “Rivers of Blood” speech, would be surprised to see what had become of the Tories.

“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,” he said. “I’m afraid on that I haven’t followed them and I don’t intend to do so.”

In his speech, Clarke, a lifelong Europhile, dismissed the “pathetic” arguments of both the leave and remain campaigns in June’s referendum, citing the promise of £350m for the NHS each week and the threat of a post-Brexit punishment budget as among the “dafter” ideas.



He also mocked the optimism of Brexit supporters, saying: “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 Erdoğan are just impatient to abandon their normal protectionism and give us access.”

The Brexit secretary, David Davis, opened the debate by urging MPs to deliver the will of the people. He said the “point of no return” had already passed, adding that there would be “no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to rejoin it by the back door and no second referendum”.



Davis said people were watching to see if politicians would keep their word. “Now we must honour our side of the agreement to vote to deliver on the result. We are considering a very simple question: do we trust the people or not?”