The UK House of Lords voted on Wednesday to amend [amendment] HL 108 [procedural history], also known as the Brexit [Economist backgrounder] bill to protect residence rights for EU citizens. With a vote of 358 to 256, the Lords voted to allow EU citizens who are residents of the UK to remain as residents after Art. 50 is triggered and the UK leaves the EU. Despite this setback for the government, Prime Minister Theresa may still intends to initiate the process [Reuters report] before March ends. The conservatives plan to fight the measure.

A majority of UK voters expressed their desire to leave the EU [JURIST report] in June, leading to the resignation of prime minster David Cameron. The EU has set out a mechanism for leaving in Article 50 [materials] of the Lisbon Treaty, where a member state “may decide to withdraw from the union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements,” and “must notify the European council of its intention.” Under Article 50, a member country can only be removed from the EU two years after notification. While Britain might bypass this process through repeal of the European Communities Act of 1972, it is believed that this would make coming to a preferential trade agreement with the EU more difficult.