PM told Cabinet that there would be a “robust response” to the Lords defeat on a meaningful vote last night ... so one presumes the suggestions that the Whips will delay the Commons vote/ping pong till Autumn for fear of losing, are not correct.
Opposition calculate that the big Commons votes on the Lords amendments come in the last week of May - so a “robust response” means PArliamentary fireworks then
Interestingly few people are considering this: IF a deal is done, then you don’t actually need a Withdrawal Bill until the Transition is over in late 2020 - all the same rules apply, and could include small changes in the Withdrawal Agreement Implementation Bill instead....
This matters, because we our fast running out of time to make the necessary transcriptions of EU law into UK law for Brexit Day - eg 800-1000 Statutory Instruments, could take a year
This in turn matters because if the statute book is not in order by March 2019, No Deal could lead to a form of legal and contractual anarchy - so de facto this could also hold up No Deal by then
Also by parking the Withdrawal Bill, or shunting it and the work it allows into a Transition, the Government may no longer need to immediately unrepeal the repeal of the ECA for the purposes of transition. That would be quite controversial in Cabinet though.
