Former Chancellor Lord Lamont urges Peers to respect referendum result as they reach second day of Brexit debate in the House of Lords
MPs have already backed the Bill overwhelmingly - but some amendments to the Article 50 legislation could still be passed
PEERS have been warned not to ignore the decision of the voters to leave the European Union as they entered into a second day of debate on the Brexit Bill.
Members of the House of Lords discussed the legislation to trigger Article 50 this morning and will continue again later today - but there is not expected to be a vote until next week.
Former Chancellor Lord Lamont began his contribution to the debate today by hitting out at the "contradictory" former Prime Minister Tony Blair and his speech last week urging people to rise up against Brexit.
Lord Lamont urged other Peers to pass the Bill with no amendments, and said: "I believe in democracy. I believe that we should proceed rapidly with this Bill without amendments."
Conservative Lord Trimble called on the Government to bring forward the Great Repeal Bill “as fast as possible” rather than sitting “twiddling our thumbs”.
Lord Robathan said politicians HAD to deliver on the result, to prove to the people that politicians could keep their promises. “We need to show both integrity and consistency,” he said.
And Ukip's Lord Willoughby de Broke insisted that it had to be a "clean Brexit... not one foot in, one foot out".
Lord Green of Deddington, the crossbench co-founder of Migration Watch, said that we have to “get on” with delivering Brexit, and that eventually, the vote to leave would be “seen to have been the right one for Britain”.
He said that in the end “we will have stepped away from a union… which we never really fitted into, and we will have taken back control of our own country.”
Even Labour's Lord Darling - Chancellor under Gordon Brown - said that the result of the demographic referendum was binding. “Triggering Article 50 is the inevitable consequence of the referendum result - there is no alternative but to do that”.
And he added: “We must accept the referendum result.”
But Labour's Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws hit out at politicians who wanted to accept the referendum, and called for "a rethink on this whole project".
She said the House of Lords should be saying: "not in our name" to cheers from Remainers around the Chamber.
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Yesterday Peers sat until midnight to try and allow as many of the 190 members who wanted to speak to get their chance to - and the debate is set to go on for hours again tonight.
There are fears that because the Government doesn't have a majority in the Lords, that Labour and the Lib Dems will team up to amend the legislation.
But Labour's Lords leader has said that she won't encourage "ping pong" by sending the Bill back and forth - and any changes won't delay the Government's timetable.
Mrs May sat on the steps to the throne - which she is allowed to do as a member of the Privy Council - and kept an eye on the Members of the Other Place.
Many crossbenchers want to put amendments into the Bill to guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in Britain, and to get a "meaningful" vote over the final Brexit deal.
MPs last month overwhelmingly waves the legislation through without any alterations - which will give Mrs May the power to trigger Article 50 by the end of March.
The debate will finish today - but there is not expected to be a vote yet. If they choose to oppose the legislation - there could be one.
Detailed scrutiny of the bill at committee stage is due to take place on 27 February and 1 March.
If the bill is not amended, then it could theoretically be approved by the Lords at Third Reading on 7 March, becoming law shortly afterwards.
