Brexit doubts mount as May marks a year

GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN FORCED INTO A SERIES OF EMBARRASSING U-TURNS

Conservative government has been forced into a series of embarrassing U-turns |

Aweakened Theresa May came under fresh pressure yesterday to soften her Brexit position, adding to uncertainty about her negotiating strategy with Brussels one year after she became Britain’s leader.

The prime minister marked the anniversary with a speech in which she appealed to the main Labour opposition party to help implement her policies, a month after losing her majority in a general election.

Amid rumours of plans to oust her, May accepted that “the reality I now face as prime minister is rather different” than it was before the June 8 election.

May took over last year after her predecessor, David Cameron, resigned in the wake of a shock referendum in which Britain voted to leave the European Union (EU).

The austere vicar’s daughter was seen as a safe pair of hands who could heal the fractured Conservative Party.

Bad move

But her government has been forced into a series of Uturns and her gamble of holding an early election backfired spectacularly.

Key parts of her Brexit plan are now also under fire from critics within her own party who want a more moderate approach and whose voices are suddenly influential because of the election result.

The latest fronts in the battle between proponents of a “hard” and “soft” Brexit are Britain’s membership of the Europe’s nuclear regulator, Euratom, and the authority of the European Court of Justice.

Some Conservative MPs have reportedly warned they will rebel if May pushes ahead with her plan to withdraw from Euratom after doctors said it could jeopardise treatment for cancer patients.

The government has also hinted it may relent on its hardline position of ending the authority of the EU’s highest court in Britain from the moment the country leaves the bloc as expected in 2019.

The real showdown is expected after the government tomorrow publishes the Repeal Bill, a hefty draft law aimed at scrapping the cornerstone of Britain’s EU membership, the European Communities Act.