Rees-Mogg leads calls for May to threaten ‘no deal’

BREXIT backers yesterday piled pressure on Theresa May to get tough with Brussels and be ready to walk out of talks with no deal.

Leading Tory MP Jacob ReesMogg said the passage of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill this week meant “the legal position is now so much stronger for a clean Brexit. Crucially this makes the Prime Minister’s negotiating hand much stronger.”

He argued that Brussels should now finally drop any hope of Britain deciding to stay and Mrs May must make clear that unless the EU gives her a good trade deal which she can get through Parliament it will not get Britain’s £39billion “divorce” payment. He accused Chancellor Philip Hammond of wanting to “frustrate” Brexit but said if the final proposed EU deal was not acceptable and we left with no deal, a future government could seek a new one.

John Longworth, co-chairman of Leave Means Leave, said people were “rightly frustrated” that not more progress had been made since the referendum. He said: “The time has come to make it clear to the EU that if their abhorrent behaviour continues, Britain will walk away. On the second anniversary of the biggest democratic mandate in British history, our message is clear: Get on with it, Prime Minister!”

Former Labour MP Gisela Stuart, of the pro-Brexit Change Britain group, said: “If people are to have trust in our democracy, the Government must stand firm and deliver what the public voted for.”

On a more optimistic note, Mr Rees-Mogg forecast that June 23, the date of the Brexit referendum vote, would be seen as being as big a moment of change in British history as the 1832 Great Reform Act, victory at Waterloo in 1815 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688.