The UK’s Brexit crisis continued late into Thursday night, with MPs voting to pass a deal that would avoid a no-deal scenario.
The draft bill, which was drafted by Conservative MP Sir Oliver Letwin and Labour’s Yvette Cooper, was passed on a knife edge just before midnight, with a majority of just one vote.
It passed with 313 ayes to 312 noes, which means it must now pass through the House of Lords for approval before royal assent into law.
If the bill is indeed passed into law, it would compel the Prime Minister to ask the EU for an Article 50 extension beyond 12 April.
This in turn would also give parliament the power to decide the length of the delay.
Many Conservatives, particularly the Eurosceptic and Brexiteer wing of the party opposed the cross-party measure, casting 290 votes against.
The vote comes after the Prime Minister met with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn earlier that day to seek a compromise on how best to proceed on Brexit and to put an end to uncertainty.
Many within the Tory party and the cabinet however condemned the decision, with two junior ministers resigning as a result.
Wales Minister Nigel Harris and Chris Heaton-Harris, the Brexit minister, both quit the cabinet in opposition to the move.
This follows the resignation of Nick Boles, a government whip earlier this week.
Boles cited the Conservative party’s inability to compromise on Brexit as the reason for the decision.
Since then, Boles has taken to twitter to express his dismay at the situation.
He suggested that the Prime Minister’s head of communications was sabotaging attempts to reach a compromise across parties.
He tweeted the following:
I am no longer a member of the Conservative Party. So I can be blunt where previously I might have been discreet. The PM’s head of communications Robbie Gibb is a hard Brexiter who wants to destroy the PM’s new search for a cross party compromise.
— Nick Boles MP (@NickBoles) April 3, 2019
