UK: Transport minister resigns over Brexit plans

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON (AA) – British Transport Minister Jo Johnson resigned on Friday, saying he could not support Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plans.

Johnson published an online article saying he will not vote for the deal May is likely to bring back to parliament within weeks but he would campaign for a second referendum on Brexit.

“It has become increasingly clear to me that the withdrawal agreement, which is being finalised in Brussels and Whitehall even as I write, will be a terrible mistake,” he said.

Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s brother and Orpington MP underlined that the country will be offered an agreement that will “leave our country economically weakened, with no say in the EU rules it must follow and years of uncertainty for business,” or no deal, “that I know as a transport minister will inflict untold damage on our nation”.

Johnson who voted to remain in the EU said it was "imperative" to "go back to the people and check they are content to proceed on this extraordinary basis."

“To present the nation with a choice between two deeply unattractive outcomes, vassalage and chaos, is a failure of British statecraft on a scale unseen since the Suez crisis,” Johnson added.

The prime minister is speculated to hold a Cabinet meeting next week to secure the support of her ministers over a Brexit deal she is negotiating with the EU.

May’s Cabinet previously suffered the resignation of foreign and Brexit secretaries, Boris Johnson and David Davis respectively.

The U.K. is set to leave the EU on March 29, 2019.