Theresa May was given a crucial boost on the first day of the parliamentary battle over Brexit as leading Tory Remain backers backed her right to trigger Article 50.
Former education secretary Nicky Morgan declared that she would not vote for any amendments to the historic bill allowing Mrs May to start the process of exiting the European Union.
“Whatever we think, more people voted to leave and I think it’s right the Government should honour that,” she said.
Asked if she would support any of the amendments put down, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “My instinct is ‘no’ at the moment, not to support any amendments.”
The Commons was staying up until midnight to cope with the demand among MPs to speak in the historic debate which will go to a vote tomorrow.
A fast-track timetable has been drafted that could see the Bill pass through both the Lords and Commons stages by March 7 - giving plenty of time for Royal Assent before the Prime Minister’s deadline of triggering Brexit by the “end of March”.
Despite a blizzard of amendments from Labour, the Scottish Nationalists and the Liberal Democrats - some designed to hold up the Bill and frustrate Brexit - Mrs May was expected to secure an easy victory in the Commons following Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to impose a three-line whip on Labour MPs in favour of the Bill.
However, failed Labour leadership candidate Owen Smith said he would defy Mr Corbyn’s orders and vote against triggering Article 50.
He said he was angry about the Government making false claims about the benefits of leaving the EU.
“I fear that we are still being lied to, like during the referendum campaign, and lied to still about how easy this is going to be.”
Some 22 Labour MPs are backing a wrecking amendment calling on the House to throw out the Bill at second reading.
Hampstead and Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq resigned from the front bench to do so.
Opening today’s debate, Brexit Secretary David Davis was expected to say: “It is not a Bill about whether or not the UK should leave the EU, or how it should do so. It is simply about implementing a decision already made, a point of no return already passed.
“We asked the people of the UK if they wanted to leave the EU; they decided they did.”
The Government has kept the Bill to just two tightly-drawn clauses in an attempt to limit the scope for amendments.
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The House of Lords is less predictable but Tory whips are confident that peers will not dare try to overturn both a referendum and a vote of the Commons.
In Dublin last night, Mrs May said: “The people of the United Kingdom voted on June 23 last year. The majority voted to leave the European Union. I think it is now the job of the Government to put that into practice.”
