Over First Hurdle

In reality there was not much doubt that the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill would clear its first hurdle. We had three votes. The first was on the Scottish National Party’s amendment which would have killed the Bill. This was defeated by 336 votes to 100. Some Labour  and Liberal Democrat MP’s voted with the SNP. The second was on whether to give the Bill a second reading ( what one might call the main vote ) this was passed by 498 to 114. So including the two tellers who incidentally unusually included the Government Chief Whip 500 MP’s voted for Brexit. Finally there was a vote to approve the timetable for next week. This was passed by 329 to 112. So the attention now turns to the hundreds of amendments which the opponents have tabled to try to change the Bill.