Dominic Raab and Esther McVey quit as Theresa May laughed at in MPs Brexit grilling.
Dominic Raab and Esther McVey have resigned their Cabinet posts, handing Theresa May’s proposed Brexit deal a significant blow.
It came shortly before the prime minister was laughed at on Thursday as she told the House of Commons she was ensuring a “smooth and orderly” exit from Europe.
Their departures were followed by a second Brexit minister, Suella Braverman, while Anne-Marie Trevelyan announced she was quitting as an unpaid parliamentary aide in the Department for Education.
Brexit Secretary Mr Raab, who had only been in the job for a few months after taking over from David Davis, said he could not support the deal “in good conscience”.
Tweeting his resignation letter, Mr Raab said: “For my part, I cannot support the proposed deal for two reasons.
“First I believe that the regulatory regime proposed for Northern Ireland presents a very real threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom.
“Second, I cannot support an indefinite backstop arrangement, where the EU holds a veto over our ability to exit.”
Mrs May paid tribute to Mr Raab and Ms McVey in the Commons, saying that delivering Brexit involved “difficult choices for all of us”.
The prime minister said that the agreed deal offered a “breadth and depth of co-operation beyond anything the EU has agreed with any other country”.
“It takes back control of our borders, laws and money. It protects jobs, security and the integrity of the United Kingdom, and it delivers in ways that many said could simply not be done,” Mrs May said.
Speaking of the so-called “backstop”, she said: “I do not pretend that this has been a comfortable process, or that either we or the EU are entirely happy with some of the arrangements which have been included in it.
“But of course this is the case. This is an arrangement that we have both said we never want to have to use.”
Ms McVey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said that the deal put forward “did not honour” the referendum result.
The Tatton MP wrote: “The British people have always been ahead of politicians on this issue, and it will be no good trying to pretend to them that this deal honours the result of the referendum when it is obvious to everyone that it doesn’t.
“We have gone from no deal is better than a bad deal, to any deal is better than no deal.
“I cannot defend this, and I cannot vote for this deal. I could not look my constituents in the eye were I to do that.”
On Wednesday evening, Mrs May said that her Cabinet had “collectively” agreed on the proposed deal.
All 585 pages of the document text were published publicly shortly after a statement the prime minister gave outside of 10 Downing Street.
Mr Raab’s departure was not the first of the day, with Northern Ireland minister Shailesh Vara also stepping down.
Mr Vara said that the agreement left the UK in a “halfway house with no time limit on when we will finally be a sovereign nation”.
In her statement at No 10, Mrs May said she believed the deal agreed was “the best that could be negotiated”.
On Thursday morning, European Council President Donald Tusk announced the EU would hold a summit on November 25 to finalise the UK’s withdrawal agreement.
In the Commons on Thursday, Jeremy Corbyn described the deal as a “huge and damaging failure”.
The Labour leader warned that it did not pass Labour’s tests for the party to vote for it.
“The Government is in chaos. Their deal risks leaving the country in an indefinite halfway house without a real say,” he said.
Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer said that Mr Raab’s resignation amounted to the prime minister “falling at the first hurdle”.
Meanwhile, rumours are continuing to swirl that the tally of Conservative MPs who have submitted letters of no confidence in Mrs May is about to reach the 48 threshold needed to trigger a vote on her position.
Jacob Rees-Mogg – the leader of the pro-Brexit European Research Group – has written to all Tory MPs urging them to vote against it.
