British Prime Minister Battles For Survival Over Brexit Deal

British Prime Minister Theresa May battled for political survival on Thursday as she tried to defend her draft Brexit deal before a hostile parliament after a string of ministers quit.

London, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Nov, 2018 ) :British Prime Minister Theresa May battled for political survival on Thursday as she tried to defend her draft Brexit deal before a hostile parliament after a string of ministers quit.

May insisted that her proposed EU withdrawal agreement was the best deal Britain could hope to strike when it leaves the European Union on March 29, warning that the only alternatives were leaving with no deal or not leaving at all.

But members of parliament on all sides told her that there was no way it could pass their approval, with arch-Brexiteers and EU loyalists alike insisting it was already sunk.

Amid the political turmoil, the pound plunged on Currency markets.

May went into battle after Dominic Raab resigned as the Brexit secretary over the draft deal, while a second cabinet minister and two junior government ministers also walked out.

She faced a barrage of exceptionally hostile questions from MPs, not only from the opposition but from her own Conservative backbenchers.

"If we get behind a deal, we can bring our country back together and seize the opportunities that lie ahead," May told lawmakers.

"The British people want us to get this done. "The course is clear: we can choose to leave with no deal, we can risk no Brexit at all or we can choose to unite and support the best deal that can be negotiated.

" EU leaders will hold an extraordinary Brexit summit on November 25. If they approve the agreement, the British parliament is scheduled to vote on it in early December.

But MPs lined up to tell her that it could not pass, from Brexit hardliners who see the deal as conceding too much to Brussels, to EU supporters who want closer ties to the bloc or a second referendum.

Raab said there would be a devastating impact on public trust in the government unless it changed course on Brexit.

"I cannot reconcile the terms of the proposed deal with the promises we made to the country in our manifesto," he said in his resignation letter. "I must resign." Brexit hardliner Esther McVey also quit her work and pensions secretary post.

"I cannot defend this, and I cannot vote for this deal," she said.

Suella Braverman resigned as a junior Brexit minister and Shailesh Vara quit as a junior Northern Ireland minister over the draft accord.

In parliament, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the main opposition Labour Party, told May: "The government must now withdraw this half-baked deal".

"This is not the deal the country was promised," he said.