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MPs wished 'Merry Brexmas' amid warnings Brexit will not be over in the new year

Victoria Jones/PA Wire

By George Ryan and Sophie Morris, PA Political Staff

MPs have been wished a "Merry Brexmas" despite warnings Brexit will not be done in the new year.

During the debate on the second reading of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill, backbench Tory MP Rachel Maclean (Redditch) said: "I want to wish everybody a very Merry Brexmas."

Former Cabinet Office minister and Remain voter Damian Green has urged MPs who also voted to stay in the EU to give up on their fight as "that game is over".

Mr Green said: "Those of us who voted for and campaigned for Remain should respect the result of the referendum.

"So to those of my friends on all sides of the House who up to now have not accepted the 2016 result, I would appeal that now, after this General Election result, please accept the decision, please let's move on, please accept that that game is over."

Labour's Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) said the Conservative election slogan "Get Brexit Done" was misleading.

She added: "Brexit isn't going to be done. The challenges of the next stage are infinitely more complex than the first."

Matthew Pennycook, Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich, added: "There is no question it did its job, but after January 31 the slogan Get Brexit Done will be exposed as the fiction it is.

"Because when this Bill becomes law, as it will, it will not mean that Brexit is done, and every single honourable and right honourable member on the benches opposite who parrotted that line during the recent election campaign knows full well that is the case.

"Brexit is a process not an act and the passage of this legislation and the full implementation of the agreement by both parties is only the end of the beginning of that process and a prelude to a far more challenging phase of it."

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