Headline voting figures
Con 31 +2
Lab 27 -3
TBP 16 +1
LD 16 NC
Grn 4 -1
SNP 3 NC
UKIP 1 NC


"All the 17/18c declarations about parliamentary supremacy are mostly penned by lawyer MPs. And they were writing about parliament as a way of countering the power of the monarch.
Until the 1832 Reform Act, the franchise was so sketchily minimal that nobody could claim the people had any way of exercising popular sovereignty, and education was so basic among the majority that it was not considered desirable.
After 1832, the people made their wishes ever clearer, forcing governments into the Repeal of the Corn Laws, social and electoral reform (prodded by the massive wave of Chartists).
The monarchy retreated from power - Victoria became progressively more arms length with governments, letting them legislate.
At no time in the 19th or 20th centuries did anybody say, oh never mind the government, we'll just leave it to parliament. George V enterprisingly banged the politicians' heads together in 1931 when the parties were fighting internal civil wars, and ordered them to realign and form a National Government to pass legislation the majority of the voters desperately demanded and needed, to deal with the slump.
If power did not come from the people, those MPs would not be sitting in that chamber at all."


Rees-Mogg addressing the "only advisory" element of the referendum. Bearing in mind, all referenda, bar the AV one in the UK have always been advisory and the result enacted upon (simply because the status quo won on the day).He said "Ah, those opposite and those in the court are claiming 'But it was only advisory'. Advisory to whom? Were we to advise ourselves? After all, we, in this house, voted overwhelmingly to allow the referendum to take place, so advising ourselves on what to do would be a pointless task if ever there was one. No, we were asking for the British people to advise us what to do, and their advice was given plainly that we must leave the European Union. Do we ignore their advice? Never. Only at our peril. "

"By passing the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill 2017 Parliament and the government ruled that the result of the Referendum 2016 was to be formally and unswervingly enacted.
Passing the Withdrawal Act 2018 enacted the full process. Parliamentary opposition to its own legislation is pointless. It has no further role, and remainer MPs have left themselves no more time to change their little minds yet again. The government is not minded to request a treaty change, and parliament cannot in law insist it does so.
Parliament has in fact just demonstrated that it is not supreme or sovereign at all. Even with the most bigoted bully the Speaker's Chair has ever seen, it is powerless to squash the people's vote to re-establish our national sovereignty - and It must now sit back and gnash its teeth helplessly."