Parliamentary votes on Brexit, sometimes referred to as "meaningful votes", were the parliamentary votes under the terms of Section 13 of the United Kingdom's European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which requires the government of the United Kingdom to bring forward an amendable parliamentary motion at the end of the Article 50 negotiations between the government and the European Union in order to ratify the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
The wording of the clause was strongly contested by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, with the Lords proposing an amendment to the bill giving further powers to parliament. When the bill returned to the Commons the Conservative government offered concessions and the Lords' proposed amendment was defeated. The bill was then passed into law on 26 June 2018.
By the end of March 2019, the government had not won any of the meaningful votes. This led to a series of non-binding "indicative votes" on potential options for Brexit, and the delay of the departure date until after the 2019 general election.
History
Background
Following the UK's decision to leave the European Union, the result of a referendum on 23 June 2016, the UK government invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union. The UK was thus due to leave the EU at 11pm on 29 March 2019 UTC.
Gina Miller, a British businesswoman, took the government to court to challenge its authority to invoke Article 50 without reference to Parliament. On 3 November 2016, the High Court of Justice ruled in favour of Miller in the case R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.
In January 2017 the Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May announced, "I can confirm today that the Government will put the final deal that is agreed between the UK and the EU to a vote in both Houses of Parliament, before it comes into force." As a result, on 13 July 2017, David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, introduced the bill in the Commons, including the following clause 9 statement: 9Implementing the withdrawal agreement (1)A Minister of the Crown may by regulations make such provision as the Minister considers appropriate for the purposes of implementing the withdrawal agreement if the Minister considers that such provision should be in force on or before exit day.
As a government bill, this first reading was pro forma, with the first debate taking place on the second reading.
On 18 April 2017 Theresa May announced a snap general election for 8 June 2017, with the aim of strengthening her hand in Brexit negotiations. This resulted in a hung parliament, in which the number of Conservative seats fell from 330 to 317, despite the party winning its highest vote share since 1983, prompting her to broker a confidence and supply deal with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to support a minority government.
In July 2017 David Jones, Minister of State for Exiting the European Union, told the Commons he expected the parliamentary vote on the Brexit deal with the EU to happen "before the European Parliament debates and votes on the final agreement." Asked to clarify what would happen if MPs and members of the House of Lords decide they don't like the deal, Jones said "the vote will be either to accept the deal. Or there will be no deal." At an Exiting the European Union Select Committee meeting in October, Labour MP Seema Malhotra asked Davis, "The vote of our parliament, the UK parliament, could be after March 2019?", to which Davis replied, "Yes, it could be." This drew criticism from Labour opposition MPs and some Conservative MPs.
Alteration of Clause 9
In December 2017 pressure grew on the government to amend clause 9 so that parliament would have approval of the final terms of the withdrawal deal between the UK and the EU prior to 29 March 2019, the date set for the UK's departure from the EU. Conservative MP Dominic Grieve advised the government to amend the clause themselves or he would table his own amendment to the bill. Grieve duly tabled his amendment to the bill (Amendment 7) requiring any Brexit deal to be enacted by statute, rather than implemented by government order.