British Prime Minister Theresa May will try to persuade her divided cabinet that they have a choice between backing a draft Brexit deal with the European Union or plunging the United Kingdom into political and economic uncertainty.
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| UK Prime Minister Theresa May says the draft agreement will deliver what "British people voted for" |
Ms May called a special cabinet meeting after negotiators from Britain and the EU broke a months-long logjam and reached agreement on divorce terms, including a plan to keep the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland open after Brexit.
Ms May was meeting with ministers one-on-one ahead of the cabinet meeting at 2:00pm (local time) in a bid to build agreement and stave off potential resignations.
Addressing Parliament, the UK leader said the draft divorce agreement "takes us significantly closer to delivering what the British people voted for" when they decided to leave the bloc".
She told MPs that the deal means Britain would "take back control" of its laws and borders "while protecting jobs, security and the integrity of our United Kingdom."
Pro-Brexit politicians in Ms May's Conservative Party — including some members of the cabinet — said the agreement would leave Britain tethered to the EU after it departed and unable to forge an independent trade policy.
Ms May's supporters argued that the deal was the best on offer, and the alternatives were a chaotic "no-deal" Brexit that would cause huge disruption to people and businesses, or an election that could see the Conservative government replaced by the Labour Party.
Former foreign secretary William Hague warned "ardent Brexiteers" that if they shot down Ms May's deal, it could lead to a change of government and a new referendum and "Brexit might never happen at all."
Failure to secure cabinet backing would leave Ms May's leadership in doubt and the Brexit process in chaos, with exit day just over four months away on March 29.
If cabinet supported the deal, it would need approval from the EU at a summit in the next few weeks.
Then Ms May would need to win backing from Parliament — no easy task, since pro-Brexit and pro-EU legislators alike were threatening to oppose it.
The main obstacle to a withdrawal agreement has long been how to ensure there were no customs posts or other checks along the border between the UK's Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland after Brexit.
Britain and the EU agree that there must be no barriers that could disrupt businesses and residents on either side of the border and undermine Northern Ireland's hard-won peace process.
The proposed solution involves a common customs arrangement for the UK and the EU, to eliminate the need for border checks, with some provisions that are specific to Northern Ireland.
The solution is intended to be temporary, but pro-Brexit politicians in Britain fear it may become permanent, hampering Britain's ability to strike new trade deals around the world.
Pro-Brexit former foreign secretary Boris Johnson said the agreement would make his favoured option, a loose Canada-style trade deal with the bloc, impossible.
He tweeted: "Cabinet must live up to its responsibilities & stop this deal."
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| Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson has opposed Ms May's agreement. |
Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which props up Ms May's minority government, said it would oppose any deal that left Northern Ireland subject to different rules to the rest of the UK after Brexit.
DUP chief whip Jeffrey Donaldson said the proposed deal threatens "the constitutional and economic integrity of the UK".
"That is not something we can support," he told the BBC.
Ms May also faces growing opposition from pro-EU politicians, who say her proposed Brexit deal is worse than the status quo and the British public should get a new vote on whether to leave or to stay.
Sophie in 't Veld, a Dutch member of the European Parliament who is deputy to the legislature's Brexit chief Guy Verhofstadt, said the real problem during the negotiations "lies within the UK, within the government, within the Tory party, between the parties, because there has not been any agreement over the relationship with the EU between any of them over the last two years."
"That is the real problem, because if the UK had a single agreed line, backed by the majority of parties and the majority of MPs, then the whole situation would not be so unclear."
AP
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