Lucy Powell’s amendment, which was tabled after our summaries, aimed to introduce a cutoff date to prevent any extension of Article 50 taking us past June. This would have helped to increase pressure for the Prime Minister’s deal or a soft-Brexit alternative such as ‘Norway Plus’.
It lost very narrowly, with just 311 votes against 314, and sixteen Conservative MPs amongst the ranks of the Ayes. It’s mostly the party’s emerging Europhile core but Rob Halfon and John Stevenson, two strong advocate of ‘Common Market 2.0‘, are newcomers.