Abrar Hussain of DOT
British Prime Minister Theresa May tried to convince senior ministers yesterday to accept a draft European Union divorce deal that opponents claim threatens both her government as well as the unity of the United Kingdom. Criticized as being the weakest British leader in a generation, May has to try to get the deal approved by parliament before exiting the bloc on March 29, 2019.
Brexit campaigners in May’s Conservative Party accused her of “surrendering” to the EU and said they would vote down the deal. The Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which props up May’s minority government, questioned whether she would be able to get parliamentary approval.
“It’s a question of whether we are separating the union, whether we are dealing with the United Kingdom in a way that leaves us adrift in the future and, as the leader of unionism in Northern Ireland, I’m not about to agree to that,” DUP leader Arlene Foster told Sky News.
The British cabinet met at 1400 GMT. They have not yet come to a decision as of writing this report.
Five of May’s senior ministers Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Michael Gove and Geoffrey Cox will back the deal, according to the Sun newspaper’s political editor Tom Newton Dunn.
-Source: Reuters