No alternative to her Brexit plan, May says
LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May says she sees no alternative to the Brexit deal she presented last week, amid reports some of her senior ministers want her to renegotiate the draft agreement before meeting EU leaders next weekend.
‘‘There is no alternative plan on the table. There is no different approach that we could agree with the EU,’’ May wrote in an article for the Sun on Sunday newspaper.
‘‘If MPs reject the deal, they will simply take us back to square one. It would mean more division, more uncertainty and a failure to deliver on the vote of the British people,’’ she said.
Just hours after announcing last week that her senior ministers had collectively backed her divorce deal, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab resigned to oppose the agreement. Other mutinous lawmakers in her party have openly spoken of ousting her and said the deal would not pass Parliament.
Brexit supporters say the transitional deal risks leaving Britain subject to EU rules for an indefinite period.
Andrea Leadsom, the minister in charge of government business in Parliament, told the BBC yesterday she was supporting May but was not fully happy with the deal.
‘‘I think there’s still the potential to improve on the clarification and on some of the measures within it and that’s what I’m hoping to be able to help with,’’ she said.
Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, said British proBrexit ministers were ‘‘not living in the real world’’ if they thought they could renegotiate the divorce treaty agreed with the EU last week.
Cabinet Minister Penny Mordaunt, Raab and five other top Conservatives — former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, Raab’s predecessor David Davis, Interior Minister Sajid Javid, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Work and Pensions Minister Amber Rudd — were all ‘‘actively preparing’’ leadership campaigns, The Sunday Times said.
It also reported Britain’s army had been ordered to step up contingency plans to help police maintain public order in case of food and medicine shortages after a ‘‘no deal’’ Brexit, citing an unnamed ‘‘wellplaced army source’’. — Reuters