On Wednesday night, Stephen Gethins, who speaks for the party on European issues, described the
vote as “a devastating act of sabotage on Scotland’s economy and our very social fabric.”
David Davis, the minister in charge of negotiating the British exit, told lawmakers
that “a point of no return already passed.” Britons, he said, were asked “whether they wanted to leave the European Union, and they decided they did.”
“At the core of this bill lies a very simple question: Do we trust the people or not?” Mr. Davis said.
LONDON — Easily winning a crucial vote among lawmakers, Prime Minister Theresa May was well on her way Wednesday to winning the parliamentary approval
that Britain’s highest court said she needed before she could begin talks on ending more than four decades of European integration.
Before Parliament’s Northern Ireland affairs select committee, a former senior European Union customs official, Michael Lux, warned of the likelihood of checks at the border between Northern Ireland
and Ireland, something Mrs. May and Northern Ireland officials dearly want to avoid.
Wednesday’s vote, in the House of Commons, will not be the final parliamentary verdict on Mrs. May’s plans, but with 498 lawmakers in favor and 114 against, it was emphatic enough to show
that any subsequent efforts in Parliament to complicate, or slow, the path to withdrawal would probably be in vain.
