Taking Back Control? Parliamentary Debates on the Brexit Bills

During the referendum campaign, arguments for the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union were mainly based on re-establishing full parliamentary sovereignty and ‘taking back control’ over British affairs. Yet it took a decision of the Supreme Court to ensure that Parliament was fully involved in the process known as Brexit. Since then, Parliament voted on two major bills related to Brexit, on the Article 50 TEU and the Great Repeal Bill. Both presented MPs with a serious challenge: the bills aimed at implementing the referendum result - and thus the ‘will of the people’ – but, especially in the case of the Withdrawal from the Union Bill, also at curtailing rather than ensuring parliamentary control over the government’s Brexit process. MPs thus had to decide whether to accept a loss of control over the executive – or to face accusations of acting undemocratically by obstructing the realisation of the popular will. Based on the assumption that MPs voting against the government proposals had to avoid electoral backlash by justifying their votes publicly, the paper will provide a quantitative analysis of the parliamentary debates, with a specific emphasis on justificatory patterns centred on the popular will, parliamentary control, and the government’s Brexit strategy.