Parliament will vote down May’s Brexit deal, says Dominic Raab
Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab believes parliament will vote down the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal next month.
However, MPs could agree stopgap measures to prevent the alternative of the UK crashing out the EU without a deal, he told the BBC’s Today programme this morning.
"We will I think inevitably see parliament vote this deal down, and then I think some of those other alternatives will need to come into play," he said.
Raab, who quit in protest over May’s draft withdrawal agreement, which ties the UK into a temporary customs union with the EU, added that the deal would leave the UK worse off than staying in the EU.
"We'd effectively be bound by the same rules but without the control or voice over them,” he said.
Under the terms of the agreement the UK cannot quit the temporary customs union unilaterally, but only with the agreement of the bloc.
The arrangement is a so-called Irish backstop to avoid a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland after Brexit, and is meant to stay in place until a permanent solution is found.
Downing Street recently indicated that it is considering using technology as a long term fix.
Raab’s resignation precipitated a host of others, including former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey, but despite a raft of no confidence letters being submitted over May;s premiership, no vote on her future as Tory party leader has yet been triggered.
The Prime Minister plans to defend her Brexit deal to the general public on a lunchtime phone-in on Radio Fivelive, and on BBC News today, in a bid to win public support for the agreement.
Remainer Damian Hinds, who is May’s education secretary, told the Today programme that the deal was “compelling”, adding: “If we weren’t to pass this deal it becomes rather unpredictable what happens next.”
Yesterday it emerged that the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which has publicly backed the agreement, called it "not a very good deal" in emails inadvertently sent to ITV.