First Ministers Of Wales, Scotland Call On Meeting With May Over Brexit Deal -Joint Letter

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th November, 2018) The first ministers of Scotland and Wales, Nicola Sturgeon and Carwyn Jones, have jointly written to UK Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday, asking for an urgent meeting following the release of a draft withdrawal agreement and criticizing the government's "chaotic approach" in relation to Brexit.

The Brexit draft deal was agreed by EU and UK negotiators on Tuesday and approved by the UK Cabinet on Wednesday. However, a number of ministers, including Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, decided to quit over their disagreement with the deal.

"The UK Government's handling of the deal reached is symptomatic of the chaotic approach to the negotiations and the lack of any meaningful engagement with the devolved administrations ... We are calling for a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee to enable us to discuss the details of the Withdrawal Agreement and to input into the political declaration before this is finalized," the joint letter read.

Jones and Sturgeon also stressed that the government could not agree the United Kingdom's future relations with the European Union without their input.

"Despite the meeting of the JMC Tuesday evening and a meeting of the British Irish Council last Friday, we were not shown or provided the detail of the draft Withdrawal Agreement or the political declaration," the letter added.

The draft deal has also been criticized by some UK lawmakers at the House of Commons on Thursday, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn describing it as "a huge and damaging failure."