Brexit

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that Parliament must have its say on Brexit, it seems MPs are determined to make the most of it. After last week’s mammoth debate, today’s session on amendments to the Government’s White Paper will drag on until the early hours of tomorrow morning. It’s expected to finish up at around 1am – keeping Brexit aficionados, as well as MPs from all sides and the Government busy. But what will they be discussing? Here's the Spectator's guide to tonight's Brexit session: After Theresa May’s Commons statement on the European Council meeting, tonight’s Commons session will essentially split into two parts. The first, expected to last from 4.

I am worried about the mental state of many Brexiteers. The author of The Spectator’s weekly Notes, Charles Moore, always a sharp observer of the passing scene, noticed my worry almost before I noticed it myself. He complained here a few weeks ago that I’m citing among my reasons for distrusting the Leave case the fact that so many of its adherents strike me as headbangers. He went on to suggest I’ve become psychologically incapable of even listening to their argument. Personality traits displayed by Brexit-eers do indeed worry me and help inform my response to their case. To help me weigh an argument, I’m in the habit of taking a long and careful look at the person making it.

What does the Government’s Brexit White Paper - which was unveiled yesterday - actually tell us? ‘Nothing and everything’, says the Guardian, which accuses ministers of dishing up a document stuffed with ‘platitudes and empty rhetoric’. But for all the lightness of detail, the White Paper reveals a bigger truth: a ‘troubling form of politics, where ministers can pursue their interest without compromise’. The Guardian says the published document offers ‘no scrutiny’ and nothing but ‘contempt’ for Parliament.

 ‘A Bill to confer power on the prime minister to notify, under Article 50(2)…’. When it comes to the House of Lords, some of those trying to amend or delay the bill will be paid pensioners of the European Commission. Peers are obliged to declare any interest that ‘might be thought by a reasonable member of the public’ to influence the way they discharge their parliamentary duties — unless it is an EU pension. In 2007, a Lords subcommittee said that because their contracts oblige them to support the EU, an EC pensioner who made ‘intemperate criticism of the commission’ would have contravened their obligations under the Treaty of Rome ‘and therefore could in theory damage his pension’.

The government's Brexit bill has been given the green light by Parliament. On Wednesday evening, MPs voted in favour by 498 votes to 114 to give Theresa May the power to trigger Article 50 and begin formal Brexit talks. A separate SNP amendment to stop the bill from progressing was also defeated, by a comfortable majority of 236. The bill will now pass to the committee stage where there could be more scope for rebellion as MPs try to add amendments. While there could still be Tory rebellions down the line, it was only Ken Clarke who broke rank and voted against the government. It was a different story for opposition parties: not even the Liberal Democrats could get all nine of their MPs into the same lobby tonight, with two abstaining.

The debate over the Bill allowing the government to trigger Article 50 has been surprisingly good-natured, so far, given the stakes. There have been some impressive speeches from all sides, and even some humour. We have learned very little about what the Bill entails and have been largely unsurprised by what each MP has said: Labour is in a very miserable place and shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer laboured this point with great feeling. Ken Clarke opposed the referendum, opposes leaving and isn’t going to change his mind.

The SNP appears to be on the verge of changing one of its core beliefs – full membership of the European Union. Senior party figures have revealed, in a piece in the Times today, that there is a desire in the higher echelons of the SNP to ditch this long-standing tenet of party policy. Instead, they want the party to adopt a Norway-style model. This would see an independent Scotland outside the EU but inside the single market, after Brexit. Scotland could then join the EU at a later date, if it wished to do so but it would not immediately join the back of the queue for EU membership, as has always been assumed. It would be a policy earthquake for the party to ditch something like EU membership that has been central to its message since the 1980s.