Those who called it quits
Dominic Raab: A British Conservative Party politician, he had served as secretary of state for Exiting the European Union from July 2018 to November 2018. Raab has served as member of parliament for Esher and Walton since being elected in 2010. “Today, I have resigned as Brexit Secretary. I cannot in good conscience support the terms proposed for our deal with the EU,” Raab tweeted yesterday. Raab was appointed parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Ministry of Justice on May 12, 2015. When Prime Minister Theresa May appointed her first government a year later, he returned to the backbenches. Specifically, Raab said yesterday, he could not support May’s plan because it treats Northern Ireland’s future trading and customs relations with the European Union in a way that “presents a very real threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom”. In his resignation letter, Raab wrote: “I cannot reconcile the terms of the proposed deal with the promises we made to the country in our manifesto at the last election.”
Esther McVey: A British Conservative Party politician, McVey had served as secretary of state for Work and Pensions from January 2018 to November 2018, and has served as MP for Tatton since 2017. Previously, she was an MP for Wirral West from 2010, until losing the seat in 2015. “Most people fall upon tough times at some point,” she said of her early childhood. To the Tory Right, she is a grafter who can authentically take a hard line on poverty; to those on the Left, she has betrayed the poor, particularly those struggling with the hated universal credit that she has spent much of the past year defending as work and pensions secretary. “Earlier this morning, I informed the Prime Minister I was resigning from her Cabinet,” she tweeted yesterday. In her resignation letter — sent to the prime minister yesterday morning — the McVey told May that her proposed Brexit deal “doesn’t meet the tests you set from the outset of your premiership”.
Shailesh Vara: A minister in the Northern Ireland office, tweeted a resignation letter saying the plan May pushed through Cabinet in a marathon meeting on Wednesday would “leave the UK in a halfway house with no time limit on when we will finally become a sovereign nation”. Vara, the North West Cambridgeshire MP who had backed ‘Remain’ in the 2016 referendum, said he feared the United Kingdom would stay in limbo for years while a permanent deal with the European Union was negotiated. “We will be locked in a customs arrangement indefinitely, bound by rules determined by the EU over which we will have no say,” he wrote. “Worse, we will not be free to leave the customs arrangement unilaterally if we wish to do so.” Vara ended: “We are a proud nation, and it is a sad day when we are reduced to obeying rules made by other countries.”
Sue-Ellen Cassiana Braverman: Known as Suella Braverman, she is a British Conservative Party politician who was first elected as the MP for Fareham in 2015 and was re-elected in 2017. She delivered her maiden speech on June 1, 2015. She has taken a particular interest in education, home affairs and justice. In a letter addressed to May yesterday, Braverman wrote: “My reasons [for resignation] are simple. Firstly, the proposed Northern Ireland Backstop is not Brexit. It is not what the British people — or my constituents — voted for in 2016. Secondly, the backstop proposal set out different regulatory regimes for Northern Ireland and Great Britain threatening to break up our precious Union. I am confident — having met with Customs professionals in my role at the department — that this could have been avoided.”