May wins Cabinet backing for Brexit deal but pitfalls remain

LONDON — In a hard-won victory, British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday persuaded her Cabinet to back a draft divorce agreement with the European Union, a decision that triggers the final steps on the long and rocky road to Brexit.

But she still faces pitfalls and threats from her domestic opponents as she tries to navigate the U.K.’s orderly exit from the EU.

May hailed the Cabinet decision as a “decisive step” toward finalizing the exit deal with the EU within days. It sets in motion an elaborate diplomatic choreography of statements and meetings.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier declared there had been “decisive progress” — the key phrase signaling EU leaders can convene a summit to approve the deal, probably later his month.

But the agreement, hammered out between U.K. and EU negotiators after months of tortuous talks, has infuriated pro-Brexit lawmakers in May’s Conservative Party, who say it will leave Britain a vassal state, bound to EU rules that it has no say in making.

Those “hard Brexit” voices include several ministers in May’s Cabinet. Emerging from the five-hour meeting in 10 Downing St., May said the Cabinet talks had been “long, detailed and impassioned.” She said there had been a “collective decision” to back the deal.

“I firmly believe, with my head and my heart, that this is a decision which is in the best interests of the United Kingdom,” she said.