May’s Brexit deemed dead as cabinet splits

Bloomberg

A majority of the UK cabinet considers Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal to be dead and three factions are discussing other options, including a second referendum, The Times reported.
The rival groups plan to make opposing demands to May at a meeting next week, the newspaper said, without saying how it got the information.
One group — Works and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd, Chancellor Philip Hammond, Cabinet Office Secretary David Lidington, Justice Secretary David Gauke and Business Secretary Greg Clark — is leaning towards backing a second referendum if all oth-er options are exhausted, acco- rding to the newspaper’s account.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove and Home Secretary Sajid Javid are understood to be refusing to accept the prospect of leaving without a deal but want Brexit to proceed. Gove is thought to prefer the idea of a softer departure such as a Norway-style deal.
A third group of House of Common leader Andrea Leadsom, Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt are said to be wil-ling to leave without a deal, the newspaper said.
Meanwhile, Theresa May has privately warned Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel that the Brexit deal is dead unless they compromise, after European leaders rebuffed her requests for help selling the agreement to politicians in London.
May delivered the message during a private 15-minute meeting with the French and German leaders, Dutch premier Mark Rutte and European Council President Donald Tusk at the end of a bad-tempered summit in Brussels, according to a person familiar with the matter. The prime minister told the four that the UK and the European Union will have reached the end of the road after 18 months of exit negotiations unless they give further assurances on the most contentious part of the package — the back-up plan for the Irish border.
Britain leaves the club of 28 countries on March 29 and May is battling to save the agreement she’s negotiated with the EU from being killed off by opponents in Parliament. If May can’t find a plan that Parliament will accept, the UK will be on course to crash out of the bloc without a deal to cushion the blow, causing economic damage that British authorities predict could include a 25 percent fall in the value of the pound and a 30 percent crash in house prices.