On Wednesday night, Stephen Gethins, who speaks for the party on European issues, described the<br />vote as “a devastating act of sabotage on Scotland’s economy and our very social fabric.”<br />David Davis, the minister in charge of negotiating the British exit, told lawmakers<br />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.”<br />“At the core of this bill lies a very simple question: Do we trust the people or not?” Mr. Davis said.<br />LONDON — Easily winning a crucial vote among lawmakers, Prime Minister Theresa May was well on her way Wednesday to winning the parliamentary approval<br />that Britain’s highest court said she needed before she could begin talks on ending more than four decades of European integration.<br />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<br />and Ireland, something Mrs. May and Northern Ireland officials dearly want to avoid.<br />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<br />that any subsequent efforts in Parliament to complicate, or slow, the path to withdrawal would probably be in vain.
