PM under pressure on three million European Union nationals living in UK

The bill authorizing Prime Minister Theresa May to trigger the Article 50 European Union exit mechanism is now progressing through Parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords.

The Government has signalled it will fight to wipe out any House of Lords amendments when the Article 50 Bill returns to the House of Commons later this month.

But an attempt to give the public another vote on the post-Brexit deal with Brussels was not supported this lunchtime – with 131 peers in favour but 336 against.

The British government should not have the authority to scrap parts of European Union legislation after the United Kingdom has formally left the bloc without proper parliamentary scrutiny, the House of Lords warned in a report published Tuesday.

However, Lord Newby, Liberal Democrat leader in the Lords, branded the threat “ludicrous” and said Labour’s 202 peers and the Lib Dems’ 102 members outnumbered the Conservatives 252 peers.

It also followed her successive failures in the courts in a bid to use Royal Prerogative in triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, a move that would have bypassed parliament.

“But neither is the complexity of a further referendum a good way of dealing with the process at the end of negotiation”.

But defiance by senior peers on her own side, including former cabinet minister Michael Heseltine, may encourage Tory rebels in the Commons.

He said he and others may back the amendment unless the government gives a strong guarantee parliament will get a final say on the deal.

Sterling fell to its lowest value since mid-January ahead of the resumption of voting in the House of Lords on the government’s bill on Article 50.

She wants the 137-word draft to go through Parliament without changes so she can formally kick off the divorce proceedings by her self-imposed deadline of March 31. Britain needs to trigger “Article 50” to launch formal negotiations with the European Union, and expects to do so this month.

“Some of the more extreme reactions that we heard immediately after the referendum have dissipated a bit and people who were feeling very aggressive towards us are now feeling a bit more constructive”, he said.

Regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s votes, the bill will then be passed back to lawmakers in the elected lower house of parliament, the House of Commons, for approval because last week it was amended to add a condition on protecting the rights of European Union citizens in Britain.

Britain will not “simply slink off as a wounded animal” if it does not get the Brexit deal it wants, the Chancellor has warned.