Theresa May has come under pressure from both her own Conservative party and opposition MPs to scrap her much-derided Brexit plan and resign.
The British prime minister spoke about the latest version of her plan to take Britain out of the European Union in the House of Commons on Wednesday, urging legislators to back the proposal.
May has offered concessions to opponents, including the possibility of a “confirmatory referendum” in the new compromise plan, hoping to win majority support for the plan in the British parliament.
But her efforts have failed to impress her party.
“It’s now clear that the overwhelming majority of the parliamentary party, the voluntary party and the electorate now agree,” Conservative politician Andrew Bridgen told Reuters news agency. “She has to go.”
Many senior government ministers failed to turn up for Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions parliamentary session, which is often used as an opportunity for political figures to show support for the government.
May’s government is “too weak and too divided to get this country out of the mess it has created”, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour party, told parliament, calling for a general election.
May said her new plan, set to be published officially on Friday, will guarantee workers’ rights legislation and establish a new government department for environmental protection.
She said the deal would “protect British jobs” by ending freedom of movement for British and EU citizens, continue to apply European agricultural and environmental regulations and give parliament a greater role in deciding the future relationship with the EU.
May had announced on Tuesday that the new legislation will give parliament a vote over holding a second public referendum – adding that she opposed the idea herself, saying those who back a second vote hoped to use it to put an end to Brexit altogether.
May said if her deal were agreed by parliament before the summer recess, Britain could leave the EU by the end of July.
“By any definition, that is delivering Brexit,” she told parliament on Wednesday.
The prime minister has said she will set out a timetable for her departure in early June. She had already promised to leave office if her deal was approved by parliament.
“In time, another prime minister will be standing at this despatch box. But while I am here, I have a duty to be clear with the House about the facts,” she said during a boisterous Commons debate.
Senior members of her own party have called for her to abandon the vote on her plan and resign immediately, while former and current cabinet ministers are already jostling for position in the race to replace her.
“She is desperate, she is deluded and she is doomed,” David Davis, a former Brexit minister, told The Daily Telegraph.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, ringleader of the most hardline Brexiteers on the Conservative backbenches, blamed May’s decision to “tack to the left”.
“Under constitutional conventions, a prime minister should recognise that she does not have a majority in the House and take the more dignified approach by tendering her resignation to the queen,” the Financial Times quoted him as saying.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
from Viral News Reports http://bit.ly/2JyhSRL
0 Comments