Only 28% Of UK Citizens Believe Parliament Should Approve Brexit Deal With EU - Poll

The UK citizens are dissatisfied with the recently-negotiated draft Brexit deal with the European Union, with just over 28 percent of them saying that the country's parliament should vote in favor of the proposed agreement, a poll carried out by the Hanbury Strategy and obtained by the Politico newspaper revealed on Thursday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th November, 2018) The UK citizens are dissatisfied with the recently-negotiated draft Brexit deal with the European Union, with just over 28 percent of them saying that the country's parliament should vote in favor of the proposed agreement, a poll carried out by the Hanbury Strategy and obtained by the Politico newspaper revealed on Thursday.

The poll was conducted on Wednesday, just hours after the UK Cabinet backed the draft EU-UK agreement, which had been confirmed on Tuesday. President of the European Council Donald Tusk said earlier on Thursday that the council would hold a meeting to finalize the agreement on November 25.

According to the results of the poll, almost 45 percent of the respondents said that the lawmakers should not support the Brexit deal, and another 27 percent could not give a definite answer. Additionally, over 33 percent of the UK citizens believe that not only should the parliament vote the proposal down, but another referendum should be held on the country's membership in the bloc. Another 27 percent of the UK citizens would prefer the lawmakers to reject the deal as well and would chose to leave the bloc with no "divorce" agreement at all.

Almost 29 percent of the respondents said that the draft deal came as a "betrayal" of the 2016 referendum results, while another 27 percent said the proposed agreement was not an improvement on the country's membership in the bloc and the United Kingdom should not have left at all in that case.

While almost 31 percent of the respondents said that the deal with Brussels was bad, but London should nonetheless try and renegotiate its conditions, another 23 percent believe that the country should leave with no deal.

Only 12 percent of the respondents said that the UK government should go for the agreement despite the fact that it was not good enough.

The poll also revealed that over 52 percent of the respondents said that avoiding a hard Irish border was worth temporarily staying in the bloc's Customs Union.

More than 45 percent of the respondents believe that it's not the right time to challenge the leadership of Prime Minister Theresa May.

The poll was conducted among a total of 505 respondents online.

The contents of the provisional agreement was revealed by EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on Wednesday. According to Barnier, the two sides have agreed on such issues as London's financial settlement with the bloc, future trade relations, the Irish border and citizens' rights after Brexit, among other things. London and Brussels also provisionally agreed to establish an EU-UK single customs territory, with Northern Ireland set to be tied to some EU single market rules to avoid a hard border.

The deal has already prompted the resignation of UK Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Esther McVey and Minister of state for Northern Ireland Shailesh Vara.

The United Kingdom voted in favor of Brexit in 2016 and is set to depart from the European Union by late March 2019.