Who's the Boss? An analysis of the vote on the 'European Union (Notice of Withdrawal) Bill' in the House of Commons

Figures & data

Table 1. Vote on the bill by party

	Labour	Conservatives	Lib Dem	SNP	Other^+	Total
For	162	320	0	0	12	494
Against	52	1	7	52	10	122
Abstained/Absent	17	8	2	2	5	34
Total	231	329	9	54	17	650

⁺ includes DUP, Greens, Independent, Plaid Cymru, SDLP, UKIP and UUP; Source: House of Commons Hansard (2017).

Table 2. Combinations of principals’ mandates and resulting conflicts

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
UK result referendum	leave	leave	leave	leave	leave	leave	leave	leave
Constituency result referendum	leave	remain	leave	remain	leave	remain	leave	remain
Party line on the Bill	for	for	against	against	for	for	against	against
MP vote in referendum	leave	leave	leave	leave	remain	remain	remain	remain
Conflict?	no	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes

Table 3. Descriptive statistics

Variables	Obs	Mean	Std. Dev.	Min	Max
Vote on Bill	602	.196	.397	0	1
Remain Result Constituency	602	48.03	11.48	24.35	79.52
Majority	602	24.31	14.03	.1	81.1
Estimated Resident Job Loss (%)	602	1.83	.37	.87	3.39
Support for Referendum	602	.51	.5	0	1
Seniority	602	10.19	8.77	1	47
Office Status	214	.86	.93	0	2
Age	602	49.83	10.25	22	82
Female	602	.30	.46	0	1

Table 4. Regression results

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
	All MPs	All MPs	Labour MPs	Labour MPs
Remain Result Constituency	0.171*** (0.0317)	0.233*** (0.0232)	0.131*** (0.0213)	0.222*** (0.0461)
Majority		0.0789 (0.0556)		0.117 (0.0668)
Remain Result Constituency # Majority		−0.002** (0.001)		−0.003* (0.001)
Support Referendum	−2.748* (1.332)	−3.182* (1.523)	−1.048 (0.797)	−1.203 (0.840)
Parliamentary newcomers			−0.544 (0.656)	−1.354 (0.795)
Frontbenchers			−1.123* (0.468)	−1.452** (0.499)
Impact Resident Jobs	−2.064*** (0.557)	−2.165*** (0.546)	−1.482 (0.864)	−1.753* (0.882)
Age	0.001 (0.009)	−0.009 (0.013)	−0.006 (0.019)	−0.011 (0.019)
Female MP = 1	0.239 (0.391)	0.426 (0.402)	0.705 (0.413)	0.897* (0.437)
Seniority	−0.035 (0.034)	−0.011 (0.037)
Constant	−5.538*** (1.479)	−7.521*** (1.631)	−4.767** (1.660)	−7.995** (2.564)
Observations	602	602	214	214
Adj. count R^2	0.517	0.525	0.250	0.365
LR	298.964	317.009	77.341	87.621
Prob > LR	p < 0.001	p < 0.001	p < 0.001	p < 0.001

The table reports the coefficients of the logistics regression with standard errors in parentheses, *p < 0.05,

**p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Adj. count R² reports the adjusted share of correctly predicted outcomes from the model.

Figure 1. Predictive margins of constituency with 95% CI

Figure 2. Predictive margins of constituency result remain dependent on seat safety

Figure 3. Predictive margins of support for referendum

Figure 4. Predictive margins of office status (Labour MPs only) with 95% CI

Figure 5. Predictive margins of estimated resident job loss due to Brexit with 95% CI

Figure 6. Estimated resident job losses due to Brexit and referendum result by constituency and MP vote

House of Commons Hansard. 2017. “Division 161, European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill.” 08.02.2017, online at:. Accessed December 14 2019. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2017-02-08/division/0293BE52-2603-4E5C-BAE3-C03D371FB92C/EuropeanUnion(NotificationOfWithdrawal)Bill?outputType=Names

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