May presses on with Brexit after another minister quits

LONDON - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Saturday she was determined to win lawmakers' backing for her Brexit deal, after a minister who quit her government said her divorce agreement would leave Britain outnumbered and outmaneuvered in future negotiations with the European Union.

Ex-Universities and Science Minister Sam Gyimah likened the deal to playing soccer against opponents who "are the referee and they make the rules as well."

May is battling to persuade British lawmakers to back the Brexit agreement when Parliament votes on Dec 11. She and EU leaders say rejecting the divorce terms, which were endorsed by the EU last weekend, would leave the UK facing a messy, economically damaging "no-deal" Brexit on March 29.

But many British lawmakers on both sides of the Brexit debate oppose the deal - Brexiteers because it keeps Britain bound closely to the EU, and pro-EU politicians because it erects barriers between the UK and its biggest trading partner.

May, attending the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, said the message she was getting from other world leaders was the importance of "certainty" about the Brexit path.

She said at a news conference that "passing this deal ... will take us to certainty for the future, and that failure to do that would only lead to uncertainty".

The two-part agreement includes the legally binding terms of the UK's departure and an ambitious but vague declaration about future relations between the two sides.

If the deal is voted down on Dec 11, what happens next remains highly uncertain. But the backers of a so-called "People's Vote" argue it opens up an opportunity to ask Britons to think again.

"There is a growing momentum behind the campaign for a second referendum," said Constantine Fraser, an analyst research consultancy TS Lombard.

Although Remainers would all wave their hands high for a second referendum, some analysts said there were significant structural barriers to it, claiming "it would be complicated".

"You would need the government to actually table a proposal, have a vote in favor of it, which would require cross-party support," said Nick Wright, a fellow in EU politics at University College London.

May has repeatedly ruled out halting Brexit or holding another vote, and it would be hard without her support.

Even if MPs did eventually coalesce around another poll, legal and practical problems loom.

Britain has legislated to leave the EU on March 29 after triggering Article 50 - the treaty mechanism used to exit the bloc - two years earlier.

It is unclear if the Article 50 process could be paused or reversed unilaterally by the government.

AP - AFP

(China Daily 12/03/2018 page11)