Brexit: British parliament passes withdrawal agreement bill by 124 majority
Baku, December 20, AZERTAC
Parliament has passed a historic milestone towards leaving the European Union, backing Boris Johnson’s Brexit bill by a thumping majority of 124, a week after the Conservatives won a landslide victory in the general election, according to The Guardian.
After comfortably passing its second reading by 358 votes to 234, the withdrawal agreement bill is on track to complete its passage through both houses of parliament in time to allow Britain to leave the European Union at the end of January.
The clear support for the bill signalled a decisive break with the parliamentary gridlock that marked the past two years.
Opening the debate on his bill on Friday morning, the prime minister called on the British public to discard the labels of leave and remain.
“We come together as a new parliament to break the deadlock and finally to get Brexit done,” Johnson said.
He said the electorate’s decision to press ahead with leaving the EU “must not be seen as a victory for one party over another, or one faction or another. This is the time when we move on and discard the old labels of leave and remain.”
In a characteristic literary aside, Johnson claimed the terms were “as defunct as Big-Enders and Little-Enders, and Montagues and Capulets at the end of the play” - terms from Gulliver’s Travels and Romeo and Juliet respectively.
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