parliament – L'ItaloEuropeo – Independent Magazine in London

MPs approve Bill: Brexit begins

London – by Chiara Fiorillo

Yesterday night, 8th February, MPs in Westminster discussed the Brexit Bill. With 494 votes against 122, the Bill allowing Brexit to begin has been approved by the House of Commons. It will now pass on to the House of Lords, entitled to make the final decision. Since the majority of votes has been overwhelming, the Bill can be passed to the House of Lords without any amendment.

Clive Lewis, Shadow Business Secretary, has been one of the 52 Labour MPs who decided not to follow their party’s orders and vote for the Bill instead. As soon as he voted, he resigned as Shadow Secretary, declaring that he could not vote against something he thinks can benefit the country.

If the Bill is approved by the House of Lords, the PM Theresa May will try and trigger the negotiations to take the UK outside of the EU by the end of March.

Moreover, MPs have rejected a Bill to guarantee EU citizens living in the UK permanent residency. With 332 against 290 votes, the Bill did not pass. Among the MPs who voted for it to pass, three (Ken Clarke, Andrew Tyrie and Tania Matthias) are Tories.

Dick Newby, Leader of Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, said respecting and protecting the rights of EU citizens is among the priorities of his party. He said he is sure Labour Party MPs will support his party when the House of Lords will have to vote for the final Bill.

During the debate, before the vote, the former Culture Secretary Ed Vaizey said the Home Secreary, Amber Rudd, has reassured the Conservative MPs about the status of EU citizens after Brexit. In a letter, he has indeed written that it can change only once the UK leaves the EU. He also said that there will be a new immigration bill: nothing can change for both EU citizens already living in the UK and for those moving now without parliament’s approval.

A spokesman of the prime minister, however, has added that defending the rights of EU citizens living in the UK will also be one of the priorities Theresa May wants to keep in mind while negotiating the exit.

According to Vaizey, who backed Remain during the EU referendum, negotiations will be tough and, he said, MPs who backed Brexit need to reassure EU citizens that their rights will be respected.

Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP, who voted for the amendment, said the refusal of Theresa May to guarantee EU citizens’ rights already now is “immoral”. “What we are talking about are people’s lives. People’s lives are not to be traded as part of some wider deal,” she said.

David Jones, Brexit Minister, said the status of EU citizens will be central in discussing Brexit’s terms, but that it will be wholly defined only once the negotiations to take the UK outside of the EU actually start.

MPs will face a six-year alcohol ban due to relocation in Whitehall

LONDON – As unveiled by The Times a few days ago, MPs currently working in the Palace of Westminster will be relocated to Richmond House, Whitehall, where the Department of Health Offices are set while a multi-billion pound refurbishment begins in 2020.

This office block where they will move, was transferred to finance an Islamic bond scheme two years ago so this means it cannot be used for anything that is not sanctioned by Sharia law. This was a point that caused a lot of controversies: while some critics say that imposing Sharia law onto government premises could undermine Britain’s financial and legal systems, the reality is that the application of this law would actually be beneficial for bond-buyers, who would earn rental income from three Government offices as interest payments are banned.

What really is inconvenient is the six-year ban from alcohol MPs would – and will – have to face once they move to their new “home”, due to the Sharia law. Numbers do not lie and it is proved that MPs drink quite a lot of alcohol throughout the year: 50,000 bottles of House Savignon, 26,000 of House Merlot, 11,000 of Peroni and 13,3 litres of Jack Daniels. For this reason, many attempted to resolve this issue by proposing to make the Red Lion Pub national “soil”, in order to allow MPs to have their “daily drinking dose” without going against the Sharia law.

This idea was rejected, along with other two ideas that would have made the renewal way longer and way more expensive. The current plan of refurbishing will cost between £3,5 bn and £3,9bn and will be carried out in around six years. The second “plan” was that of moving MPs and peers at different times – this would have costed £4,4bn and it would have taken 11 years to be completed. The last one, with 32 years of “work in progress”, expected the works of refurbishment to carry on while MPs kept on working in the building.

It is the first time that MPs will be outside the House of Parliament since 1941, when both Houses were in fact convened at Church House in Westminster due to a fear that the Chambers might be bombed while the Houses were sitting. These works have become more and more necessary and essential throughout the past years: the landmark has a leaky roof, crumbly stonework and faulty cabling. The Queen Elizabeth Tower is also tilting by 18 inches. The restoration and renewal unit of the British Parliament has said that since the UNESCO world heritage site’s construction in the mid-1800s “many features have never undergone major renovation”.