Brexit deal clinched

Britain and the European Union claim Brexit breakthrough; eye talks on future ties.

London: British Prime Minister Theresa May scored a key success in clinching a Brexit agreement with Brussels but faced an immediate backlash from hardliners at home for making compromises.

“It’s not Brexit,” Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence Party and a major driving force behind last year’s Brexit referendum, told BBC radio.

“A deal in Brussels is good news for Mrs May as we can now move on to the next stage of humiliation,” he said on Twitter.

Boxed in by rival pro-Brexit and pro-EU factions within her own Conservative party, May has been at risk of being toppled ever since a general election in June in which she lost her majority.

The Sun earlier this week even reported a plot to oust her before Christmas and install her Brexit Secretary David Davis as prime minister.

While that threat may have receded for now, it has not gone away and May faces an uphill struggle getting parliamentary backing for the deal.

Campaign group Leave.EU issued a scathing reaction to yesterday’s deal, saying that “our lily-livered politicians have sold the country down the river”.

It called the agreement a “complete capitulation”.

Government ministers, however, lined up to congratulate May with her deputy Damian Green saying it a “big successful moment” for her.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove, a top Brexit campaigner who ran against May in a party leadership race last year, said the preliminary agreement was a “significant personal, political achievement”.

Conservative MP Anna Soubry, a leading pro-EU advocate, gave the deal a “warm welcome”.

DUP leader Arlene Foster offered only grudging support to May, saying that aspects of the agreement could require further examination. — AFP