The Senate had earlier passed legislation restoring the Australian Building and Construction Commission – one of the government's triggers for the July double-dissolution election – after accepting a raft of amendments from various crossbenchers in late-night debate on Tuesday.
President Bush, speaking in New York before the markets opened, expressed confidence that Congress would agree on a financial bailout plan and left open the possibility of accepting amendments being proposed by Democrats.
But after the government decided to accept a series of amendments tabled by the European Research Group ERGG), led by Jacob Rees-Mong, on Monday, it was Tory remainers who were enraged.
Lord Saatchi made concessions to his critics and accepted a series of amendments, and got his bill through the Upper House.
The result is that Tory Brexiters will not be able to stage a vote of rebellion, but comes at the price of Downing Street accepting an amendment that the ERG had claimed would kill off May's "facilitated customs arrangement".
I accept, of course, that this must not undermine the negotiations, and any Labour amendment will reflect this.
Last week there was clearly hope that some Labour members representing strongly pro-leave areas could be tempted into the "yes" division, with the government accepting an amendment from three of them which gave further guarantees on employment rights after Brexit.
One option would be for the government to seek to reduce the number of Tory rebels by accepting an amendment by the former Tory environment secretary Caroline Spelman to allow cities with large numbers of tourists to opt out of the current Sunday trading laws.
The next day on a motion made by Mr. Bassett of Virginia, and on which the yeas and nays were demanded, the House by a vote of 69 to 45 agreed to accept the amendment of the Senate, thus confining the privilege of voting for members of the Convention to "free white males". p348 On Wednesday, February 20 , 1811 the Enabling Act was approved by President Madison.
Will the army ever accept amendment of the constitution?
Corbyn asked at one point whether she would accept the amendments tabled ahead of next week's vote, designed to rule out a no-deal Brexit, if they were passed.
