British lawmakers from all sides on Monday called for a parliamentary vote on future ties with the EU and warned hard Brexit was a “grave danger,” but the British government swiftly dismissed the demand.
“We will reject any attempt to undo the referendum result,” British Secretary of State for Exiting the EU David Davis said in parliament, amid mounting pressure from former leaders of the two main opposition parties and among his own party’s ranks.
Davis said the mandate for Brexit was “clear, overwhelming and unarguable” and warned against any attempts to “keep Britain in the European Union by the back door.”
The Conservative member was met with heckling from opponents.
Calls for a vote came after British Prime Minister Theresa May’s government on Sunday was forced into an U-turn when it backtracked on a proposal for companies to publish lists of foreign employees that caused widespread outrage.
“We do want parliament to debate ... most notably whether we remain in the single market,” Anna Soubry, a member of May’s Conservative Party, told BBC radio.
Soubry said there was a “grave danger” of the government drawing its own conclusions from the result of the referendum about the type of future relationship that Britons wanted with the EU.
“It is not good for our country,” she said.
Former Labour Party leader Ed Miliband said on Twitter: “The PM must get parliamentary consent for her Brexit negotiating position. No referendum mandate for hard Brexit nor a Commons majority.”
“Negotiating secrecy won’t wash as an excuse. The country has a right to know the government’s Brexit strategy and parliament must vote on it,” he said.
Experts say that a so-called hard Brexit would mean Britain withdrawing entirely from Europe’s single market and negotiating new trade arrangements to impose strict immigration controls.
EU leaders have said Britain must accept free movement of people if it wants access to the single market and have warned the negotiations will be tough.
A spokesman for May dismissed members’ calls for a vote, saying: “Parliament is of course going to debate and scrutinize the Brexit process as it goes on, but having a second vote or a vote as a sort of second guess of the will of the British people is not an acceptable way forward.”
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