Critics attack PM May from both sides - Reuters

According to reporting by Reuters, UK Prime Minister Theresa May continues to face friction from both sides amidst current Brexit positioning, with both the EU and her own Conservative party giving the UK PM a run for the money.

Key quotes

" Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit strategy means disaster for Britain, her former foreign secretary Boris Johnson said, as critics at home and officials in Brussels stepped up their opposition to her plans for how to leave the European Union. With under two months before Britain and the EU want to agree a deal to end over 40 years of union, May is struggling to sell what she calls her business-friendly Brexit to her own party and across a divided country. The prospect that she could fail to reach a deal that would carry parliament at home, and that Britain could potentially crash out of the EU in March with no deal in place at all, has worried financial markets.

Johnson, one of the leading pro-Brexit campaigners during the referendum that secured Britain’s 2016 vote to leave, quit May’s cabinet days after the Chequers plan was approved. “We will remain in the EU taxi; but this time locked in the boot, with absolutely no say on the destination,” he wrote in Monday’s column, criticising the plan for regulatory alignment.

Nor is the EU itself on board. Chief EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier criticised the proposal in a German newspaper on Sunday as trying to secure advantages of EU membership without taking on its responsibilities.

May’s spokesman said the Chequers deal was the only credible and negotiable plan for Brexit and the government believed it could carry the support of parliament. “There’s no new ideas in (Johnson’s) article to respond to. What we need at this time is serious leadership with a serious plan, and that is exactly what the country has with this Prime Minister and this Brexit plan,” the spokesman told reporters.

The Times newspaper reported 20 Conservative MPs were now backing a grassroots ‘StandUp4Brexit’ campaign, committing to opposing the Chequers plan. Parliament returns from its summer break on Tuesday. May has a working majority of just 13 votes and has pledged to give MPs approval of the final deal with Brussels.