Brexit: May risks fresh confrontation with ERG over backstop
Source: The Guardian
Eurosceptics react angrily to culture secretary’s suggestion backstop may not be removed
Theresa May is facing a fresh showdown with Eurosceptic Conservative MPs after a cabinet minister suggested she may put her Brexit deal to parliament again without having secured a change to the withdrawal text.
Before talks between May and EU leaders, the culture secretary, Jeremy Wright, said the prime minister’s aim was to solve the Northern Ireland backstop issue but the “mechanism” of the change did not matter.
His words caused alarm among some Eurosceptic Tory MPs, who have repeatedly made clear they would not vote for a deal that did not remove an indefinite Northern Ireland backstop – a clause that could bind the UK into a permanent customs union with the EU.
May has written to every Tory MP reassuring them that she would attempt to eliminate any risk that the backstop is applied indefinitely and urging them to “move beyond what divides us and sacrifice personal preferences for the national interest”. This week, she will speak to every EU leader and meet Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, in an attempt to break the stalemate over the agreement, which Brussels does not want to reopen.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/17/brexit-may-risks-fresh-confrontation-erg-backstop
How do spell "clusterfuck".......................Tories/Breixt
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