United Kingdom parliament passes Brexit Bill and opens way to triggering Article 50

However, the government insisted that its schedule was not affected by Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, who called for a second independence referendum Monday.

“One of the reasons we don’t talk about the contingency plan too much is we don’t want people to think this is what we are trying to do”.

It is possible there could be a slight delay to this timetable if the House of Lords reject the bill in the final stages on Monday evening.

The bill will now move back to the House of Lords, where peers are likely to accept it without their amendments later on Monday night. After a High Court ruling, the Supreme Court held that only parliament could trigger Brexit, forcing May and her cabinet to push a bill through parliament. Ultimately, the elected Commons, which has already approved it, will prevail.

But she can’t do it until Parliament approves a bill authorizing the government to start the divorce process.

This meant that the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill passed the House of Commons without any changes.

Both British and European Union officials have said such residents should be guaranteed the right to stay where they are, but the two sides have so far failed to provide a concrete guarantee, leaving millions of people in limbo.

The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said there was real possibility the talks could end with no deal and warned that would be “very destructive” for both Britain and the EU.

In parliament, May said she was planning to represent the whole of the UK including Scotland in those European Union talks, before adding: “The most important single market for Scotland is the single market of the United Kingdom”. The public voted 52 percent to 48 to leave, sending shockwaves through Europe.

“We were not elected to be lemmings”, Lucas said.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had warned that the prospect was on the cards since the June vote to leave the European Union – in which a majority of Scots voted to stay – but an announcement had not been expected so soon.

“The Liberal Democrats will keep fighting to give the British people the final say on the deal, so that a hard Brexit isn’t imposed on the country that nobody voted for”.

“So we will trigger Article 50 by the end of this month as planned and trigger an outcome that works in the interests of the whole of the United Kingdom”.

It had been widely expected she would announce the process was beginning on Tuesday, but her spokesperson has now suggested the announcement will be made at “the end of March”.

May called Sturgeon’s cry for independence “deeply regrettable”.

No date was set for the new vote although Sturgeon said she wants it to be held between the fall of 2018 and spring 2019.

Mr Davis said that allowing the amendment would give politicians a chance to fight for us to remain in the EU.

During the last Scottish independence referendum in 2014, 55 percent of voters opposed Scotland breaking away from the UK.