UK ministers back May on Brexit but she faces battle in parliament
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May won the backing of her senior ministers for a draft European Union divorce deal on Wednesday, freeing her to tackle the much more perilous struggle of getting parliament to approve the agreement.
More than two years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU in a referendum, May told reporters outside her Downing Street residence that she had won over her divided cabinet, which includes some senior Brexiteers.
“The collective decision of cabinet was that the government should agree the draft withdrawal agreement and the outline political declaration,” May said outside her Downing Street residence after a five-hour cabinet meeting.
“I firmly believe that the draft withdrawal agreement is the best that could be negotiated,” May said as protesters shouted anti-Brexit slogans from the end of the street.
It was not immediately clear whether any ministers had resigned over the deal, which May hopes will satisfy both Brexit voters and EU supporters by ensuring close ties with the bloc after Britain leaves on March 29.
But May, the weakest British leader in a generation, now faces the ordeal of trying to push her deal through a vote in the British parliament, where opponents lined up to castigate the agreement, even before reading it.
It is not yet clear when parliament might vote on a deal. To get it approved, May needs the votes of about 320 of parliament’s 650 lawmakers.
The ultimate outcome for the United Kingdom remains uncertain: scenarios range from a calm divorce to rejection of May’s deal, potentially sinking her premiership and leaving the bloc with no agreement, or another referendum.
May, an initial opponent of Brexit who won the top job in the turmoil following the referendum, has staked her future on a deal that she hopes will solve the Brexit riddle: leaving the EU while preserving the closest possible ties.
But she has satisfied few.
Brexit supporters in May’s Conservative Party, which has been riven by a schism over Europe for three decades, said she had surrendered to the EU and that they would vote down the deal.
The Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) which props up May’s government, said it would not back any deal that treated the British province differently from the rest of the United Kingdom.
Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called it a “botched deal”.
Before May’s statement, the BBC’s political editor said anger among Brexit-supporting Conservative lawmakers in her party was so high that it was likely they would call on Thursday for a vote of no confidence in her leadership of the party.
Additional reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Kate Holton; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden; Editing by Kevin Liffey
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