LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May won the backing of her senior ministers for a draft European Union divorce deal on Wednesday, freeing her to tackle the much more perilous struggle of getting parliament to approve the agreement.

More than two years after the United Kingdom voted in a referendum to leave the EU, May told reporters outside her Downing Street residence that she had won over her divided cabinet, which includes some senior Brexiteers.

“The collective decision of cabinet was that the government should agree the draft withdrawal agreement and the outline political declaration,” she said after a five-hour meeting.

Speaking over protesters shouting anti-Brexit slogans from the end of the street, she said the deal, 585 pages long, was the best that could be negotiated.

“When you strip away the detail, the choice before us was clear: this deal, which delivers on the vote of the referendum, which brings back control of our money laws and borders, ends free movement, protects job security and our Union; or leave with no deal; or no Brexit at all,” she said.

It was not immediately clear whether any ministers would resign over the deal, which May hopes will satisfy both Brexit voters and EU supporters by ensuring close ties with the bloc after Britain leaves on March 29.

But the weakest British leader in a generation now faces the ordeal of trying to push her deal through a vote in parliament, where opponents lined up to castigate the agreement, even before reading it.

Brexit will pitch the world’s fifth largest economy into the unknown. Many fear it will divide the West as it grapples with both the unconventional US presidency of Donald Trump and growing assertiveness from Russia and China.

Supporters of Brexit admit there may be some short-term pain for Britia’s $2.9 trillion economy, but say that, in the long term, it will prosper when cut free from the EU - which they cast as a failing German-dominated experiment in European integration.

A summit of EU leaders is likely be held on Nov 25, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said. May gave no date for a vote in parliament, but she will need the votes of about 320 of the 650 lawmakers. It is unclear whether she has the numbers.

“I know there will be difficult days ahead and this is a decision that will come under intense scrutiny, and that is entirely as it should be,” May said.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2018