Advocate says voters can change UK deal
British voters will be able to change the final Brexit agreement with the European Union if they aren’t happy with what the British government delivers, a key Brexit supporter claimed Saturday.
British Environment Secretary Michael Gove’s comments came after Prime Minister Theresa May compromised on issues such as Britain’s financial obligation to the bloc, the Northern Ireland border and the jurisdiction of European courts in order to reach a preliminary agreement on divorce terms with the EU.
The EU had demanded an agreement on these issues before it would allow the talks to move on to allimportant questions of trade and the future relationship between the two sides.
“The British people will be in control,” Gove wrote in Saturday’s edition of the Daily Telegraph. “By the time of the next election, EU law and any new treaty with the EU will cease to have primacy or direct effect in UK law. If the British people dislike the arrangement that we have negotiated with the EU, the agreement will allow a future government to diverge.”
Britain’s next general election is scheduled for 2022, three years after the U.K. is set to leave the EU in 2019. Many analysts expect elections to be called earlier because May leads a minority government and is struggling to maintain control of a fractious cabinet.