Liam Fox Says No New Brexit Vote Even If U.K. Crashes Out of EU
Liam Fox Says No New Brexit Vote Even If U.K. Crashes Out of EU
(Bloomberg) -- The U.K. government will resist calls for another referendum on leaving the European Union even if it fails to secure an acceptable withdrawal agreement with the bloc, according to International Trade Secretary Liam Fox.
In an interview with Sky News on Saturday, Fox said he sees “a very difficult end” to fraught discussions in which EU negotiators think they’re making too many concessions and British counterparts think they haven’t won enough commitments to guarantee the nation’s independence.
“We may or may not be able to get that agreement, in which case we would have to leave the European Union without one," Fox said. "But we are not going to be bounced into another referendum, so that those who lost the previous one can try to apply continued membership of the European Union to the people of Britain in perpetuity.”
His comments come the day after Jo Johnson, the pro-European brother of the former foreign secretary and arch-Brexiteer Boris, quit as transport minister saying he couldn’t vote for the deal May was negotiating, and called for a second referendum on Brexit.
To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Kolesnikova in London at mkolesnikova@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Steve Geimann at sgeimann@bloomberg.net, Cecile Gutscher, Paul Richardson
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