Britain's May could face trouble over Brexit deal, Conservative lawmaker warns
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu/britains-may-could-face-trouble-over-brexit-deal-conservative-lawmaker-warns-idUSKBN1L409R
Jacob Rees-Mogg, chair of the European Research Group, a faction within May’s Conservative Party, is strongly opposed to the government’s so-called Chequers plan for Brexit and favors a clean break with the bloc on March 29 next year.
“If she sticks with Chequers, she will find she has a block of votes against her in the House of Commons,” Rees-Mogg, tipped as a possible successor to May, told The Sunday Times newspaper, describing the Chequers proposals as “surrender” to the EU.
Rees-Mogg said letting it run to December would be “very risky”, the newspaper reported, as that would only leave three months to get the deal approved by the British parliament.
That would mean the government “must come forward with a deal that Brexiteers like, because otherwise they might find it’s much harder to get through parliament than they think”, he was quoted as saying.
Rees-Mogg said he believed a “Canada-plus” deal, a free trade pact along the lines of the EU’s 2016 agreement with Canada but with deeper ties given Britain’s already closer trading links, could command a majority in parliament.
“If the prime minister came to the House of Commons with a Canada-plus style Brexit, people like me would say, ‘Yes, that’s all right,’ and people who are strongly pro-European would say, ‘Yes, that’s better than leaving on World Trade Organisation terms,’” Rees-Mogg said. “So although that wouldn’t be what people might choose, it could command a majority.”