The Mercury News

Advocate says voters can change UK deal

- By Danica Kirka

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.

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