Cabinet ministers threaten to delay Brexit if no-deal not axed
By Frank Prenesti
Date: Saturday 23 Feb 2019
(Sharecast News) - Three members of Theresa May's Cabinet said they were ready to force a delay to Brexit in order to prevent a damaging no-deal scenario.
Amber Rudd, David Gauke and Greg Clark threw down the gauntlet to ultra-right Tory Brexiteers, threatening to back an alternative amendment that would delay Article 50 - the mechanism that drives the process - if they destroyed May's proposals.
Writing in the Daily Mail newspaper, the trio said "too many of our parliamentary colleagues appear complacent about the consequences of leaving the EU without a deal".
"Our economy will be damaged severely both in the short and long term. Costs will increase, businesses that rely on just-in-time supply chains will be severely disrupted, and investment will be discouraged," they said.
"If there is no breakthrough in the coming week, the balance of opinion in parliament is clear - that it would be better to seek to extend Article 50 and delay our date of departure rather than crash out of the European Union on March 29."
The trio issued a stark warning to the hardliners in their party, who brand themselves as the "European Research Group", saying it was time they recognised that "parliament will stop a disastrous no-deal Brexit on March 29".
"If that happens, they will have no one to blame but themselves for delaying Brexit."
"And the integrity of the United Kingdom would be put at risk. A no-deal Brexit will mean that those whose lives straddle the Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland border will become much more complicated," they wrote.
"It is already clear that moderate Nationalists who, up until now, have been reconciled to living in the United Kingdom, will increasingly see the attractions of a united Ireland. The calls for a border poll would grow stronger and, with it, the prospect of the end of the United Kingdom."
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