Thursday, January 9, 5:30 p.m. History is running in the House of Commons: the "Withdrawal agreement bill" (WAB), which transposes into British law the divorce between the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU), has just been adopted at third reading, with a very comfortable majority of almost 100 votes: 330 MEPs voted for , 231 against. Admittedly, the text still has to be discussed in the House of Lords and win royal assent in mid-January, but these steps are now considered formalities. There is nothing to prevent a Brexit on January 31, three years and seven months after the 2016 referendum.
Times have definitely changed in Westminster: since the general election of 12 December and the overwhelming victory of the conservative camp led by Boris Johnson, the exhausting guerrilla war that the deputies of the previous House had carried out until November Downing Street is already only a memory. The national media all headlined on Thursday the shocking decision by Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle to partially end their royal engagements. Almost not a line on a vote yet engaging the country for decades to come …
Three short days of debate
The Prime Minister killed the suspense, with his "super majority" (365 Conservative MPs against only 203 Labor MPs). The amendments proposed by the Scottish separatists of the SNP or Labor have all been swept aside. Consequence of this conservative pre-eminence: this complex text was examined in record time – only three short days of debate, between January 7 and 9. In November, when a first version of the text was presented to Westminster, Labor elected officials called for at least two weeks of review. Already defeated, they have completely deserted the opposition benches for the past two days. Sounded by their historic defeat, most were already busy selecting their future leader – or future leader – to replace Jeremy Corbyn.
Only loyal to the post, although in reduced numbers: the Northern Irish elected officials and the Scots of the SNP. Ian Blackford, leader of the independence party, was one of the very few who spoke on Thursday evening after the vote to demand, once again "A new independence referendum for the Scots who did not vote for Brexit and do not want to leave the European Union".
