This means the government cannot trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty - beginning formal exit negotiations with the EU - on its own.

Theresa May says the referendum - and existing ministerial powers - mean MPs do not need to vote, but campaigners called this unconstitutional.

The government is appealing, with a further hearing expected next month.

The prime minister's spokeswoman said she would be calling President of the EU Commission Jean-Claude Juncker to say she intended to stick to her March 2017 deadline for triggering Article 50.

Amid suggestions that she might try to call an early general election, she added that Mrs May believed "there shouldn't be an election until 2020 and that remains her view".

A statement is to be made to MPs on Monday but the government says it has no intention of letting the judgement "derail Article 50 or the timetable we have set out".
[www.bbc.com]

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I think this is great. Put those Tory MP's on the record as supporting this so they can't dodge responsibility when things go to hell when/if it actually occurs.

(Not that that always works- we still hear the decision to go into Iraq was "bipartisan", when in fact it was strongly pushed by a Republican president, the majority of the Democratic Congressional delegation voted against it, and nearly every Republican was for it.)

I was surprised when my friends in the UK (a lovely couple that were over here on business for a few years and then sadly returned home) told me that they were all in for the Brexit. I think they harbor a distaste for immigrants that they'd never shared with us.

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In England for my honeymoon in 2011, I found the country to be a friendly multi-racial country, which is quite different from the England I was born and grew up in back in the late 1960's-70's. At that time, racism was par for the course. As a half-Indian/half-American-mongrel hybrid, hardly a week would go by without my hearing "Go back to your own country," finding a brick thrown through a window, or other vandalism of our house.

After my 2011 experiences, I was quite surprised by the Brexit vote. Still, 48% of voters voted against Brexit, and a vote for Brexit does not necessarily suggest racism, but could instead be cast due to the economic concerns associated with mass immigration.

My mother, on the other hand, was glad about the outcome of the Brexit vote; "I hate to think of them as being different from what I remember, even if it means they're still racist sons of b's."