UK Labour threatens to back rebels in ‘Brexit vote’

Bloomberg

The UK opposition Labour Party could unite with rebels in Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party as a way to force her to give lawmakers a vote on the final deal to leave the European Union, the party’s Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer wrote in the Sunday Times.
Starmer demanded May accept six changes to the so-called repeal bill, including giving parliament final say on whether to approve it and ad-ding a two-year implementation period following Brexit during which Britain would stay in single market and customs union. Writing in Times online comment section he vowed to “work with all sides” unless ministers adopt his suggested changes and end the paralysis over the bill.
With May in charge of a minority government that needs the votes of the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland to advance legislation, she is vulnerable to opposition to the bill. Both Conservative and opposition members in Parliament have already proposed hundreds of amendments, including from May’s former cabinet colleague Dominic Grieve to require a formal vote to enact Brexit. The government faces the pros-pect of defeat from its own MPs on at least 13 amendments, said Starmer, causing action on the bill to be paused.
Starmer called for the bill to “respect the devolution settlement” and to entrench wor-kers and human rights, dismissing it as “not fit for purpose” in its current form. The Scottish and Welsh governments have said they will not support the legislation, with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Welsh counterpart Carwyn Jones releasing a statement in July calling it “naked power grab.”