UK PM Theresa May to appeal to rival parties to help implement Brexit

LONDON: UK Prime Minister Theresa May will call on opposition lawmakers to help steer Britain out of the European Union as she seeks to reset after her standing was diminished by last month’s disastrous general election.

May, who’s now reliant on the votes of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists to get her agenda through Parliament, will restate her political mission to tackle “injustice and vested interests that threaten to hold us back”.

Social and economic reform is needed to make a success of Brexit, she will say in a speech on Tuesday, but in a sign of her weakness will call for cross-party co-operation to deliver it.


“I say to the other parties in the House of Commons, come forward with your own views and ideas about how we can tackle these challenges as a country,” May will say, according to extracts of the speech released by her office.

“We can play it safe or we can strike out with renewed courage and vigor, making the case for our ideas and values and challenging our opponents to contribute, not just criticise.”

May came under fire from her own party over the weekend as she prepared to publish a draft law this week intended to repeal the UK’s membership of the EU, and set a new legal framework for the country after it withdraws from the bloc.

Some of her Conservative Party colleagues have talked openly of the need to replace her, while opposition lawmakers are preparing a series of challenges to her Parliamentary authority. May, who took office on July 13, 2016, insists she will still be prime minister in 2018, despite losing her majority. She received a boost on Saturday when US President Donald Trump said a trade deal with the UK will be done “very, very quickly”.