Parliament gives first approval to EU Withdrawal Bill

The EU Withdrawal Bill has this week passed its first parliamentary test, when, following two days of intense debate, a majority of Members of the UK Parliament voted in support of the Bill. The Bill ends the supremacy of EU law in the UK and overturns the 1972 European Communities Act which originally took the UK into the EU. The Bill will also transpose all existing EU laws into the UK law.

The Bill was backed by a majority of 326 votes to 290: no Conservative MPs voted against the Bill but seven Labour MPs defied Jeremy Corbyn’s instructions to support the Bill, and voted against it. The Bill will now be scrutinised line-by-line in the committee stage and will be subject to more intense calls for change. A total of 157 amendments have been proposed and published on the House of Commons website, covering nearly 60 pages of the Bill. The committee stage will take place when MPs return to Parliament after party conferences.