Britain announces draft Brexit deal with EU
Britain has agreed on a draft Brexit deal with the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Tuesday, although she must still get it through her cabinet and the deeply divided parliament.
The breakthrough after months of acrimonious negotiations came with fears mounting of a potentially catastrophic scenario, in which Britain leaves the bloc in March with no deal at all.
Yet numerous hurdles stand in the way of a final agreement, most of them in London, where members of May’s own cabinet and party are once again arguing over how to proceed.
Ministers were individually briefed about the deal’s outline on Tuesday evening, ahead of a special cabinet meeting on Wednesday to sign off the text, Downing Street said.
“Cabinet will meet at 2:00 pm (1400 GMT) tomorrow to consider the draft agreement the negotiating teams have reached in Brussels, and to decide on next steps,” it said.
France’s European Minister Nathalie Loiseau confirmed that the sides had finally made “substantial progress”.
“We are going to look very carefully at the draft agreement. We want a good text that scrupulously respects the interests of the EU,” she wrote on Twitter.
The pound surged on the news, rising by 1 per cent against the dollar and 0.5 per cent against the euro compared to late Monday.
If British ministers back the text, which runs to hundreds of pages, London hopes the EU will call a summit later this month so the bloc’s leaders can give their approval.
Ambassadors from the 27 remaining EU member states will meet on Wednesday afternoon, while Ireland’s cabinet is also reportedly set to convene in Dublin.
– ‘No-one voted for this’ –
May faces substantial opposition to her strategy in the House of Commons, which must approve the agreement before Brexit on March 29.
Some ministers have also publicly disagreed over what they want from the deal, particularly on the fraught issue of Ireland, and Westminster is braced for possible resignations.
Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, a leading Brexit supporter who quit the government in July over May’s approach, said he would fight the draft agreement.
“It patently fails to fulfil the mandate given by the British people,” he told the BBC.
Crucially, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Union Party (DUP), who give May her majority in parliament, also threatened to reject a deal that leaves Britain tied too closely to the EU.
“No one should be surprised that we vote against it because we have warned the prime minister time and time again that we entered into an agreement with her to deliver Brexit,” the DUP’s Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson told Sky News.
Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose party has indicated it would reject the deal, said he would await further details but added: “This is unlikely to be a good deal for the country.”
(AFP)
