May’s cabinet backs draft agreement on Brexit

MONTHS OF TALKS YIELD DRAFT TEXT FOR WITHDRAWAL, BUT UK REMAINS DEEPLY DIVIDED

British Prime Minister Theresa May said that she won her cabinet’s backing for a draft divorce deal with the European Union after a “long, detailed and impassioned” marathon meeting yesterday.

The breakthrough came as pro-Brexit lawmakers raged against a draft agreement they said would make the UK subservient to the bloc indefinitely.

May’s cabinet debated whether to support the deal after negotiators from Britain and the European Union broke a months-long logjam and reached agreement on divorce terms.

May referred to the support from her cabinet as a “collective agreement,” but didn’t say whether the deal received unanimous backing.

She emerged from the fivehour meeting to tell reporters in Downing Street that the deal was “the best that could be negotiated.”

She said approval by cabinet was a “decisive step which allows us to move on and finalise the deal in the days ahead.”

“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.

Earlier, May told lawmakers in the House of Commons that the draft deal “takes us significantly closer to delivering what the British people voted for in the referendum” of 2016 that opted to leave the EU.

Foreign Correspondent

After 16 months of difficult negotiations, the United Kingdom and the European Union have agreed to the text of a deal for Brexit.

British Prime Minister Theresa May won the backing of her senior ministers for a draft European Union divorce deal yesterday, freeing her to tackle the much more perilous struggle of getting parliament to approve the agreement.

More than two years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU in a referendum, May told reporters outside her Downing Street residence that she had won over her divided cabinet, which includes some senior Brexiteers.

“The collective decision of cabinet was that the government should agree the draft withdrawal agreement and the outline political declaration,” May said outside her Downing Street residence after a fivehour cabinet meeting.

“I firmly believe that the draft withdrawal agreement is the best that could be negotiated,” May said as protesters shouted anti-Brexit slogans from the end of the street.

But the real test is May’s ability to sell the deal to sceptics and get parliamentary approval.

And right now, those parliamentary numbers are not going May’s way.

She will need 320 votes, and her Conservative party is in a minority with 315 seats, only keeping power through the support of 10 MPs from the Democratic Unionist party MPs from Northern Ireland.

Those 10 have already indicated they are opposed to the Brexit deal because it treats the British-governed province differently from the rest of Britain.

And within her own Conservative ranks, there are at least 40 — and possible as many as 80 — who say the Brexit deals gives too much away to Brussels, and they favour a hard Brexit, sharp and quick to allow the UK to go its own way free of EU regulations and law.

Opposition to deal

The opposition Labour Party says the deal doesn’t work for the UK, while Scottish nationalists at Westminster say they will oppose the deal.

If the Brexit deal is defeated — the vote will likely be sometime in early December — May faces several choices. She can resign; call a snap general election; go back to Brussels and try and renegotiate a deal; call a second referendum on the text of the deal; or ask the EU to suspend that March 29 deadline and seek more time to work out the next steps. All are fraught with danger.