Four UK ministers on verge of quitting over Brexit

This article is more than 12 months old

Nov 12, 2018 06:00 am

LONDON: The British government may see the resignation of four ministers who back remaining in the European Union (EU).

They are unhappy over Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plans, the Sunday Times reported.

The newspaper also said the EU had rejected Mrs May's plan for an independent mechanism to oversee Britain's departure from any temporary customs arrangement it agrees to.

Britain has proposed a country-wide temporary customs arrangement with the EU to resolve the issue but Brexiteers in her party want London to have the final say on when that arrangement would end, to prevent it from being tied indefinitely to the bloc.

A senior cabinet minister was quoted in the paper as saying: "This is the moment she has to face down Brussels and make it clear to them that they need to compromise, or we will leave without a deal."

An EU diplomat said earlier on Saturday that they were cautiously hopeful that an EU summit could happen this month to endorse the deal but that the volatile situation in Britain made it very difficult to predict. Other EU diplomats said several issues remained unresolved.