10A Friday, November 16, 2018
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
WORLD
UK’s defiant May tells critics
it’s her Brexit deal or chaos
Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a press
conference inside 10 Downing Street in London, Thursday,
Nov. 15.
BY JILL LAWLESS
AND RAF CASERT
Associated Press
LONDON — Prime Min
ister Theresa May defied
mounting calls to quit or
change course Thursday
over Britain’s withdrawal
from the European Union,
warning that abandoning
her Brexit plan would plunge
the country into “deep and
grave uncertainty.”
Britain’s long-simmering
divisions over its future in
the EU erupted into turmoil
just a day after the govern
ment agreed to a divorce
deal with the bloc. Two
Cabinet ministers resigned
and some lawmakers from
May’s own party called for
her to be replaced. The cri
sis threatened to destroy the
Brexit agreement, unseat
the prime minister and send
the U.K. hurtling toward the
EU exit without a plan.
In an evening news con
ference aimed at regaining
some control, May said she
believed “with every fiber
of my being that the course
I have set out is the right one
for our country and all our
people.”
“Am I going to see this
through? Yes,” she said.
The hard-won agreement
with the EU has infuriated
pro-Brexit members of
May’s divided Conservative
Party. They say the agree
ment, which calls for close
trade ties between the U.K.
and the bloc, would leave
Britain a vassal state, bound
to EU rules it has no say in
making.
May insisted that Brexit
meant making “the right
choices, not the easy ones”
and urged lawmakers to sup
port the deal “in the national
interest.”
But she was weakened by
the resignation of two senior
Cabinet ministers, including
Brexit Secretary Dominic
Raab. Hours after he sat in
the meeting that approved
the deal, Raab said he “can
not in good conscience” sup
port it.
Work and Pensions Secre
tary Esther McVey followed
Raab out the door. She said
in a letter that it is “no good
trying to pretend to (voters)
that this deal honors the
result of the referendum
when it is obvious to every
one that it doesn’t.”
A handful of junior gov
ernment ministers also quit,
and leading pro-Brexit law
maker Jacob Rees-Mogg
called for a vote of no-confi-
dence in May.
Rees-Mogg said May’s
deal “is not Brexit” because
it would keep Britain in a
customs union with the EU,
potentially for an indefinite
period. He said May was
“losing the confidence of
Conservative members of
Parliament.”
Rees-Mogg called for May
to be replaced by a more
firmly pro-Brexit politician,
naming ex-Foreign Secre
tary Boris Johnson, former
Brexit Secretary David
Davis and Raab as potential
successors.
Under Conservative
rules, a confidence vote in
the leader is triggered if 15
percent of Conservative law
makers — currently 48 —
write a letter to the party’s
1922 Committee of back
benchers, which oversees
leadership votes.
Only committee chair
man Graham Brady knows
for sure how many missives
have been sent, but Rees-
Mogg’s letter is likely to spur
others to do the same.
If a confidence vote is
held and May loses, it would
trigger a party leadership
contest in which any Conser
vative lawmaker — except
her — could run.
The turmoil is the latest
eruption in the Conservative
Party’s long-running civil
war over Europe. Ever since
Britain joined what was then
the European Economic
Community in 1973, the
party has been split between
supporters and opponents
of Britain’s membership.
In 2016, then-Prime Minis
ter David Cameron called
a referendum “to settle this
European question in British
politics” once and for all.
He was confident the
country would vote to
remain, but voters opted
by 52 percent to 48 percent
to quit the EU, a result that
left both the Conserva
tives and the country more
divided than ever. Cam
eron’s successor, May, has
been struggling ever since
to deliver a Brexit that satis
fies those who want to leave,
reconciles those wanting to
remain and doesn’t rock the
economy — a near-impossi
ble balancing act.
Thursday’s political may
hem prompted a big fall
MATT DUNHAM I Associated Press
in the value of the pound,
which was trading 1.5 per
cent lower at $1.2797 as
investors fretted that Britain
could crash out of the EU in
March without a deal. That
could see tariffs on Brit
ish exports, border checks
and restrictions on travel
ers and workers — a poten
tially toxic combination for
businesses.
Business groups have
warned that if there is no
deal by next month, com
panies will have to enact
contingency plans that could
include cutting jobs, stock
piling goods, and relocating
production overseas.
May and her supporters
say the alternatives to her
deal — leaving the bloc with
out a deal or a second vote
on Brexit — are not realistic
options.
If the agreement was
abandoned, “nobody can
know for sure the conse
quences that will follow,”
May said. “It would be to
take a path of deep and
grave uncertainty when the
British people just want us to
get on with it.”
News that a deal had been
struck after a year and a
half of negotiations was wel
comed in Brussels, and EU
chief Donald Tusk called for
a Nov. 25 summit of leaders
so they can rubber-stamp
the agreement.
The deal requires the
consent of the European
Parliament, whose chief
Brexit official, Guy Verhof-
stadt, welcomed it as “the
best agreement we could
obtain.”
It also needs approval
from Britain’s Parliament
before the U.K. leaves the
bloc on March 29 — and
even if May survives as
leader, the chances of that
look slim.
Bangladesh scraps
BY JULHAS ALAM
AND EMILY SCHMALL
Associated Press
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh — The head
of Bangladesh’s refugee commission said
plans to begin the repatriation of 700,000
Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar on Thursday
were scrapped after officials were unable to
find anyone who wanted to return.
The refugees “are not willing to go back
now,” Refugee Commissioner Abul Kalam
told The Associated Press. He said officials
“can’t force them to go” but will continue to
try to “motivate them so it happens. ”
Some people on the government’s repatria
tion list disappeared into the sprawling refu
gee camps to avoid being sent home, while
others joined a large demonstration against
the plan.
More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have
fled to Bangladesh from western Myanmar’s
Rakhine state to escape killings and destruc
tion of their villages by the military and Bud
dhist vigilantes that have drawn widespread
condemnation of Myanmar.
The United Nations, whose human rights
officials had urged Bangladesh to halt the
repatriation process even as its refugee
agency workers helped to facilitate it, wel
comed Thursday’s development.
Firas Al-Khateeb, a spokesman for the U.N.
High Commissioner for Refugees in Cox’s
Bazar, said it was unclear when the process
might begin again. “We want their repa
triation, but it has to be voluntary, safe and
smooth,” he said.
Bangladesh officials declined to say
whether another attempt at repatriation
would be made Friday.
Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.H. Mah-
mood Ali told reporters in Dhaka late Thurs
day that “there is no question of forcible
repatriation. We gave them shelter, so why
should we send them back forcibly?”
Rohingya return
At the Unchiprang refugee camp, a Bangla
deshi refugee official implored the Rohingya
on Thursday to return to their country over a
loudspeaker.
“We have arranged everything for you, we
have six buses here, we have trucks, we have
food. We want to offer everything to you. If
you agree to go, we’ll take you to the border,
to the transit camp,” he said.
“We won’t go!” hundreds of voices, includ
ing children’s, chanted in reply.
Some refugees on the repatriation lists —
which authorities say were drawn up with
assistance from the UNHCR — said they don’t
want to go back.
At the Jamtoli refugee camp, one of the
sprawling refugee settlements near the city
of Cox’s Bazar, 25-year-old Setara said she
and her two children, age 4 and 7, were on a
repatriation list, but her parents were not. She
said she had never asked to return to Myan
mar, and that she had sent her children to a
school run by aid workers Thursday morning
as usual.
“They killed my husband; now I live here
with my parents,” said Setara, who only gave
one name. “I don’t want to go back.”
She said that other refugees on the repatria
tion list had fled to other camps, hoping to dis
appear amid the crowded lanes of refugees,
aid workers and Bangladeshi soldiers, which
on Thursday were bustling with commerce
and other activity.
Bangladesh had planned to send an initial
group of 2,251 back from mid-November at a
rate of 150 per day.
Myanmar officials, speaking late Thursday
in the captal, Naypyitaw, said they were ready
to receive the refugees. Despite those assur
ances, human rights activists said conditions
were not yet safe for the Rohingya to go back.
The huge exodus of Rohingya began in
August last year after Myanmar security
forces launched a brutal crackdown following
attacks by an insurgent group on guard posts.
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