Leadsom: I still have major reservations about plans

‘We have to make sure that nothing happens that can stop Brexit’

A EUROSCEPTIC Cabinet minister who yesterday backed the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal still harbours significant reservations about the plans.

Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the Commons, has been one of the leading critics of the deal and had been said to be considering her position.

However, in a letter to her constituents she gave the deal her qualified support. She still wants progress on the backstop, which will tie the UK into a customs union with the EU in the event the Irish border issue cannot be resolved. She also has significant concerns over the “doomsday” warnings about the impact of a no-deal Brexit.

She has previously accused Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, of getting his numbers wrong.

Mrs Leadsom has concluded, however, that the UK will be better off leaving the EU under Mrs May’s deal rather than with no deal at all.

In her letter to her South Northamptonshire constituents, Mrs Leadsom wrote: “We have to make sure that nothing happens that can stop Brexit. Two things are certain – first, that this is the only deal on the table, and second, that it means we will leave on March 29 2019.

“My conclusion is that I must support the deal, and our Prime Minister.”

In the Commons yesterday, Pete Wishart, the SNP’S Commons leader, suggested that the deal was a dead parrot, leading Mrs Leadsom to respond ,likening the deal to a parrot, but she said it was the “only one in the aviary” and therefore worth “serious consideration”.