The universities minister, Sam Gyimah, has resigned in protest at the prime minister’s Brexit plan and pledged to vote against the agreement in parliament. On Friday, he became the seventh minister to quit Theresa May’s government over the issue.

Gyimah said the deal on offer would mean the UK lost its voice in the European Union, while still having to abide by the bloc’s rules.

“In these protracted negotiations, our interests will be repeatedly and permanently hammered by the EU27 for many years to come. Britain will end up worse off, transformed from rule makers into rule takers,” he wrote in an article for the Daily Telegraph.

Sam Gyimah: rising Conservative star who quit over Brexit Read more

“It has become increasingly clear to me that the proposed deal is not in the British national interest, and that to vote for this deal is to set ourselves up for failure. We will be losing, not taking control of our national destiny.”

And the Conservative MP for East Surrey, who voted to remain in the EU, said May should not rule out holding a second referendum.

Sam Gyimah MP (@SamGyimah) After careful reflection, I will not be supporting the Government on the EU Withdrawal Agreement. As such, I have tended my resignation as Universities & Science Minister – read more on my Facebook page: https://t.co/EFQrBjkJZG

The resignation is a fresh blow to the prime minister, who has been trying to get on the front foot in the fight to force her deal through parliament on 11 December.

The Democratic Unionist party, which struck a confidence and supply deal with the Tories after the last election and upon whom May relies heavily, has already indicated it would not support her plan. And many of her own MPs, as well as the Labour party, do not back it either.

Gyimah’s resignation triggered an outpouring of support from Tory remainers, including two former ministers, who highlighted his suggestion that a second referendum was an idea worth considering now May’s deal had been made public.

Jo Johnson, who quit from his job as rail minister over Brexit earlier this month, said Gyimah’s resignation was “strong and principled” and welcomed his openness to “giving the public the final say”.

The former education secretary and leading supporter of the campaign for a second referendum Justine Greening said: “Like many MPs he has recognised the huge shortcomings of the prime minister’s deal and the need to find an alternative path forward for Britain.”

She was backed by the Lib Dems’ education spokesperson, Layla Moran, who said Gyimah’s resignation was yet more evidence the prime minister did not have the support of parliament. “The list of Tory rebels for May’s deal gets longer and longer and she is now searching for a new universities minister as well as votes. This government is falling apart and the decision must be taken back to the public.”

Earlier this week, Gyimah was spotted at a breakfast meeting in Westminster with Johnson and the soft Brexit-supporting ministers, Greg Clark, David Gauke and Margot James, prompting speculation about plotting by those on the left of the party.

With speculation about further resignations swirling on Friday night, James swiftly declared she was not going to quit, saying: “I fully intend to support the deal the PM is putting to parliament on 11 December.”

Gyimah is likely to join the People’s Vote second referendum campaign, after talking to Johnson and Greening in the run up to his departure. But, with the ink barely dry on his resignation letter, he has yet to decide precisely what he intends to do.

Chief among his concerns was the protracted negotiations over Galileo, the EU’s strategic satellite navigation system. The government has said UK defence and security services would no longer participate after Brexit and it emerged on Friday that the country may never claw back £1.2bn it had already invested.

Gyimah said the prime minister was right to withdraw from the negotiation, which he said was “stacked against us from the very beginning”. But he added: “Galileo is only a foretaste of what’s to come under the government’s Brexit deal.”

He wrote: “There is a mountain to climb, and we are still in the foothills. Under the deal we will have only two, at most four, years to agree at least five times what has been settled to date.

“With so much left to negotiate, we must take a clear-eyed view on the strength of our position.” Gyimah said the EU had held the cards so far in the negotiations and time was not on the UK’s side. “All of this points to an off-the-shelf deal dictated by the EU that will be materially worse for my constituents in East Surrey than staying in.”</s>The former Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation of Great Britain Sam Gyimah

The former Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation of Great Britain Sam Gyimah

ANOTHER MEMBER OF Theresa May’s government has resigned, after universities and science minister Sam Gyimah stepped down last night over what he said was the Prime Minister’s “naive” Brexit plan.

He becomes the seventh member of May’s government to quit since she brought back the draft Withdrawal Agreement from Brussels last month.

Gyimah, who voted to remain in the EU, said the deal was “not in the British national interest” and argued that voting for it would set Britain “up for failure”.

“Britain will end up worse off, transformed from rule makers into rule takers,” he wrote on Facebook.

“It is a democratic deficit and a loss of sovereignty the public will rightly never accept,” he added.

He did not rule out the possibility of supporting a second referendum, saying “we shouldn’t dismiss out of hand the idea of asking the people again what future they want”.

Gyimah said Britain’s exclusion from the EU’s Galileo programme because of Brexit was a “clarion call”, saying it was “only a foretaste of what’s to come” in negotiating a future relationship with the bloc.

“I have seen first-hand the EU stack the deck against us time and time again,” he said.

Britain in June revealed that it had been formally excluded from future contracts for the programme, intended for commercial uses such as logistics as well as for armed forces and emergency services.

Brussels has said it will deny London access to Galileo’s encrypted signals after Britain’s EU departure next year, despite its estimated £1.2 billion (€1.3 billion) investment.

May has said Britain would look to build its own system.

Gyimah, a former aide to prime minister David Cameron, praised May’s “grit and determination”, but his resignation highlights the daunting task of getting the deal through parliament.

Both Remainers and Brexiteers in her own party have vowed see it defeated in a crucial vote on 11 December.</s>LONDON: British science and universities minister, Sam Gyimah, quit Prime Minister Theresa May's government on Friday, the sixth minister to resign in protest of her proposed Brexit deal with the European Union.

Gyimah, a junior-ranking minister who campaigned in the 2016 vote to keep Britain in the EU, said May's deal meant Britain would surrender its "voice and its veto" and that the prime minister should not rule out the prospect of a second referendum.

His resignation represents a further blow to May, who is trying to persuade her own lawmakers to approve the deal she struck with Brussels on Sunday.

May faces criticism from all sides including the Northern Irish party propping up her government, ahead of Britain's departure from the EU in four months.

"It has become increasingly clear to me that the proposed deal is not in the British national interest, and that to vote for this deal is to set ourselves up for failure," Gyimah wrote in a resignation statement published by the Daily Telegraph newspaper. "We will be losing, not taking control of our national destiny."

Gyimah did applaud the "grit and determination" of May, who is in Buenos Aires attending a Group of 20 summit.

Earlier on Friday, May conceded that Britain will not use the EU's Galileo space project for defence or critical national infrastructure, following a row over the post-Brexit future of the planned rival to the U.S. Global Positioning System.

"Galileo is only a foretaste of what's to come under the government's Brexit deal," Gyimah said in his statement.</s>Universities minister Sam Gyimah is the seventh minister to quit since Theresa May presented her Brexit agreement two weeks ago.

The East Surrey MP, 42, resignation is another blow to the prime minister hopes of getting the deal through the House of Commons.

It follows the resignation of Brexit minister Dominic Raab earlier this month, after his predecessor David Davis left to rally against the Chequers agreement.

On Facebook, Mr Gyimah said he could not support an agreement which would hand sovereignty to Brussels, leaving Britain ‘poorer, less secure and weaker in the pursuit of our national interests’.

Mr Gyimah said that if MPs were to support the agreement it would ‘set ourselves up for failure’ by surrendering ‘our voice, our vote and our veto’.

With a number of Tory MPs now publicly opposed to the deal, his departure highlighted the scale of the task the May faces if she is to win the crunch vote in the Commons on December 11.

He added in his article: ‘Britain will end up worse off, transformed from rule makers into rule takers. It is a democratic deficit and a loss of sovereignty the public will rightly never accept.

‘It has become increasingly clear to me that the proposed deal is not in the British national interest, and that to vote for this deal is to set ourselves up for failure. We will be losing, not taking control of our national destiny.’

Downing Street confirmed that his letter had been received and said there would be a response ‘in due course’.

Mr Gyimah’s announcement came as Mrs May disclosed she had given up efforts to gain access to the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system for defence and critical national infrastructure purposes, after being frozen out by Brussels because of Brexit.

She confirmed the UK would instead aim to build its own Global Navigation Satellite System, at a cost estimated by independent experts at £3-5 billion.

She said: ‘Given the Commission’s decision to bar the UK from being fully involved in developing all aspects of Galileo, it is only right that we find alternatives.’

Mr Gyimah was added to the Conservative party A-List and selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for East Surrey in 2010 following the retirement of Peter Ainsworth.

He took the seat with a 17,000 vote majority and had only been in Westminster for two years when he was made parliamentary private secretary to then Prime Minister David Cameron.

But he pushed for a bigger role in Government, becoming a whip in 2013 and childcare minister in 2014.

Further promotions to prisons minister and his most-recent role as universities minister followed.</s>Theresa May has accused Labour of planning a “betrayal of the British people” by voting down her Brexit deal and pushing the country towards a no-deal departure from the EU.

With less than a fortnight to go to the historic House of Commons vote on her plan, the Prime Minister urged all MPs – including 100 or more Tories who have said they may rebel – to cast their vote “in the national interest” and back a deal which she said would deliver Brexit while protecting jobs.

In a round of broadcast interviews in Argentina, where she is attending the G20 summit, Mrs May declined to discuss whether she might offer a Plan B if her deal is voted down on December 11, or whether defeat could mean her resigning or being forced out.

“It’s not about me,” said Mrs May. “This is about what is in the national interest.

“It’s about delivering the vote to leave the EU and doing it in a way that protects people’s jobs and livelihoods and protects our security and our United Kingdom.”

Her comments came after a cross-party group of senior MPs tabled an amendment to stop the UK leaving the EU without a deal if Mrs May’s plan fails to win the support of the Commons.

The amendment, put down by a group of committee chairs, including Labour’s Hilary Benn and prominent Tory Sarah Wollaston, calls for the Commons to be able to express its views about what should happen if Mrs May’s deal is voted down.

Speaking at the G20 in Buenos Aires, European Council president Donald Tusk warned that Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement is “the only possible one” and voting it down will either lead to a no-deal Brexit or no Brexit at all.

He told reporters: “The European Union has just agreed an orderly divorce with the United Kingdom.

“A few days before the vote in the House of Commons it is becoming more and more clear that this deal is the best possible – in fact the only possible one.

“If this deal is rejected in the Commons we are left with, as was already stressed a few weeks ago by Prime Minister May, an alternative: no deal or no Brexit at all.”

Asked whether she was putting pressure on Tory MPs to fall in behind her plan, Mrs May said: “Obviously we’re talking to colleagues about this vote. I think we should remember that we gave the vote to the British people as to whether or not to leave the EU. People voted for Brexit and I think it’s up to us to deliver Brexit.

“The message I get from members of the public is that they want the Government to do that, they want us to deliver Brexit and we want to do it in a way that protects people’s jobs. I think it’s that interest in constituents that MPs need to have in their minds too when they come to vote.”

Turning her fire on Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, who she has offered to debate with on TV ahead of the crunch Commons vote, Mrs May said: “I’ve got a plan, I’ve got a proposal, I’ve got the deal that I’ve negotiated.

“We don’t see any alternative coming forward from the Labour Party. I think people need to be aware of that.

“Instead, what I see from Labour is an attempt to frustrate what the Government is doing to deliver Brexit for the British people. That is actually a betrayal of the British people.”

Mrs May said she was ready to use the G20 summit to correct suggestions by US president Donald Trump – who is also in Buenos Aires – that her deal would leave the UK unable to forge a trade agreement with America.

“I’m very happy to tell President Trump and others that we will have an independent trade policy, because we will have an independent trade policy, we will be able to do trade deals,” she said.

“It is expressly referenced in the deal that we have negotiated with the EU. It says we will be able to do those trade deals, and we will be able to do them with the US and others.”

Mrs May’s comments came as International Trade Secretary Liam Fox insisted that a no-deal Brexit would not be a disaster.

Dr Fox said that reactions to Whitehall analysis showing that withdrawing from the EU without an agreement would have severe economic consequences had been “overblown”.

Dr Fox, who insisted that Mrs May was “changing the public mood”, appeared to suggest that some of his Cabinet colleagues may still vote against the PM’s Brexit deal.

Asked if he thought the whole Cabinet would back the deal in the Commons, Dr Fox told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think members of the Cabinet will vote for the deal.”

But hinting at potential further resignations from Mrs May’s top team over Brexit, he added: “Members of the Cabinet who don’t vote for the deal won’t be members of the Cabinet.”

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg accused the Government of an effort to “frighten and to gull (people) into acquiescing to a non-Brexit Brexit”.

Dr Fox, who has given his backing to Mrs May’s deal, is using a speech on Friday to appeal for unity and support for the PM’s stance.</s>Prime Minister will be questioned by senior Members of Parliament on the draft agreement.

On November 22, Mrs May defended a Brexit draft in the House of Commons again, after the UK and the European Union agreed on the text of the declaration on future relations.

The draft deal was criticized by some officials. On Wednesday, UK Chancellor Philip Hammond said that every Brexit scenario will be detrimental to the United Kingdom "in pure economic terms".

"Yes, you're right in that analysis. If you look at this purely from an economic point of view, there will be a cost to leaving the European Union because there will be impediments to our trade," Hammond told BBC Radio 4's Today program when asked whether every Brexit scenario will be detrimental to the UK's GDP compared to the current status quo.

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The UK Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal "absolutely minimizes those costs and reduces to an absolute minimum the impact of leaving the EU," Hammond added.

Previously, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's First Minister reacted on May's Brexit Deal and PM's open letter to the British people.

"I don't say this lightly, but almost nothing in this desperate letter is true," Sturgeon tweeted. "This is a bad deal, driven by the PM's self-defeating red lines and continual pandering to the right of her own party."

The House of Commons of the UK Parliament is to hold a final vote on Brexit deal with the European Union on December 11 after the EU leaders approved the withdrawal agreement at a special summit.

In the June 2016 referendum, the UK voted to leave the EU. According to the European Council, the agreement will come into force on March 30, 2019, to provide for an "orderly" withdrawal, despite a spate of stumbling blocks that hamper the Brexit talks, including the Irish border, the proposed customs union, the Gibraltar issue and post-Brexit UK-EU economic relations.</s>During an interview with Sky news host's Gillian Joseph and Stephen Dixon, co-owner of website Westmonster Michael Heaver claimed that Theresa May and her team were taking tactics from David Cameron’s Remain playbook. He said: “Theresa May knows that so many MP’s are against the deal. Virtually every Brexiteer Mp is against it and about 100 Tory Mp’s are against it.

“What she is trying to do, is go over the heads of them and go directly to people and build up public support.

“I am frankly astonished that Theresa May and her team seem to be replicating David Camerons Remain strategy that was defeated in 2016."

Theresa May has been touring the country in an attempt to convince the people of the UK that her Brexit withdrawal deal is what is best for the country in achieving Brexit.

She has faced intense scrutiny from both Remainers and Brexiteers who have noted that through trying to please both parties equally she has achieved in pleasing nobody.</s>Further details of a looming Holyrood vote against Theresa May's Brexit deal have been revealed, with MSPs set to declare it would be "damaging for Scotland and the nations and regions of the UK".

All parties apart from the Conservatives recently teamed up to announce they are putting a joint motion forward for debate at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday - less than a week before MPs at Westminster have their say on the Prime Minister's proposals.

The SNP, Labour, the Greens and Liberal Democrats have now agreed the wording of the single motion up for debate.

It states: "Parliament agrees that both a no-deal outcome and the outcomes arising from the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom as presented to the House of Commons by the Prime Minister would be damaging for Scotland and the nations and regions of the UK as a whole and therefore recommends that they be rejected and that a better alternative be taken forward."

A vote by MSPs against the draft EU Withdrawal Agreement will not stop the deal from going through, and is largely symbolic, but it will become the formal position of the Scottish Parliament if adopted.

The debate follows talks between Constitutional Relations Secretary Mike Russell, Labour Brexit spokesman Neil Findlay, Ross Greer from the Greens and Lib Dem MSP Tavish Scott.

In a joint statement, the four politicians said: "This debate will give the Scottish Parliament the opportunity to express its overwhelming opposition to both the Prime Minister's Withdrawal Agreement and a no-deal Brexit, agreeing that a better alternative must be found."

The Scottish Conservatives' interim leader Jackson Carlaw has previously said it was "deeply regrettable" the other opposition parties at Holyrood had "chosen to stand shoulder-to-shoulder" with the SNP on the issue.

He said: "These four parties don't seem to get it. As numerous European leaders have made clear in recent weeks, the alternative to the Prime Minister's deal is a no-deal scenario.

"It would be devastating for Britain. Yet that is what the SNP, Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens are risking by opposing the deal on the table."

Despite the agreement by the four parties on the motion, there are significant divisions on what should happen if the Prime Minister’s draft agreement is rejected.

The Lib Dems, the SNP and the Greens favour a referendum which would offer voters the chance of staying in the EU, while Labour has described a second vote as merely an option.

Meanwhile, the latest Minister to quit the Government over the Prime Minister's Brexit plan has dismissed her agreement with Brussels as a "deal in name only".

Sam Gyimah, who resigned as Universities and Science Minister, said Britain was giving up "our voice, our veto and our vote" in Europe and would get "hammered" in the next stage of the talks on future relations with the EU.

He urged the Prime Minister not to rule out a second referendum if - as many at Westminster expect - she is defeated in the crucial Commons vote on the Withdrawal Agreement on December 11.

Senior ministers continued to argue that while the agreement was not perfect, it was the best that could be achieved.

However, with scores of Tory MPs now publicly opposed to the deal, Gyimah's departure highlights the scale of the task facing May if she is to avoid a potentially crippling defeat in the Commons.

He is the seventh minister and ministerial aide to resign from the Government since May unveiled the draft Withdrawal Agreement less than three weeks ago.

Like Jo Johnson, who quit as transport minister, Gyimah backed Remain in the referendum, underlining the fact that opposition to the deal comes from both the Leave and Remain wings of the party.</s>LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Theresa May accused the opposition Labour Party of betraying the British people by trying to stop Brexit as she went on the offensive Friday in her battle to win approval of the widely criticized divorce agreement she negotiated with the European Union.

With less than two weeks to go before a vote in the House of Commons, May is trying to win support from lawmakers of all parties who have balked at the deal. She declined to entertain questions about what alternative she might offer if the current agreement is rejected Dec. 11.

"I've got a plan, I've got a proposal, I've got the deal that I've negotiated," she said ahead of the G-20 summit in Argentina. "We don't see any alternative coming forward from the Labour Party. ... Instead, what I see from Labour is an attempt to frustrate what the government is doing to deliver Brexit for the British people. That is actually a betrayal of the British people."

The agreement ratified by EU leaders last weekend came more than two years after a U.K. referendum in which 52 percent of those who cast ballots voted to leave the bloc. Some opponents are calling for a second referendum now that the costs of leaving the EU have become clear, but May says that would violate the trust of the 17.4 million people who voted for Brexit in 2016.

The prime minister has been highlighting the risks of leaving the EU without a deal in a bid to persuade skeptical lawmakers — including many of her fellow Conservatives — to back the agreement.

Her efforts suffered a blow Friday when Universities Minister Sam Gyimah quit the government, saying accepting the deal would mean surrendering "our voice, our vote and our veto" in the EU.

"Britain will end up worse off, transformed from rule makers into rule takers," Gyimah wrote in the Daily Telegraph.

Several other ministers have quit the government in the past two weeks, saying they cannot support the agreement. Some, like Gyimah, supported remaining in the bloc in Britain's 2016 EU referendum, while others back a definitive break with the EU.

Many members of Parliament on both sides of the Brexit debate oppose the deal — Brexiteers because it keeps Britain bound closely to the EU, pro-EU politicians because it erects barriers between the U.K. and the EU, its biggest trading partner.

Leaving the EU without a deal would end more than 40 years of free trade and disrupt the flow of goods and services between Britain and the EU. The Bank of England warned this week that a no-deal Brexit would plunge Britain into a severe recession.

May's comments came after lawmakers proposed an amendment that could stop Brexit if Parliament rejects her agreement. The amendment says Parliament must be able to express its view on how the government should proceed if the prime minister's plan is defeated.

Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, a staunch Brexiteer who is one of the most vocal critics of the deal, said Friday the government was trying to frighten people into accepting it with dire forecasts about the impact of leaving the EU without an agreement.

Some lawmakers urged May to return to the EU for better terms. But European Council President Donald Tusk, who is also at the G-20 meeting in Buenos Aires, warned that the agreement ratified by the EU last weekend is "the only possible one."

"If this deal is rejected in the House of Commons, we are left with an alternative: no deal, or no Brexit it all," Tusk said. "The European Union is prepared for every scenario."

May urged British lawmakers to remember that the country voted for Brexit, and insisted that the public wanted government to get on with it.

"This is about what is in the national interest," she said. "It's about delivering the vote to leave the EU and doing it in a way that protects people's jobs and livelihoods and protects our security and our United Kingdom."</s>May faces more Brexit woes after UK minister quits

LONDON (AP) — The latest minister to quit British Prime Minister Theresa May's government because of Brexit says the prime minister's divorce deal with the bloc would leave Britain outnumbered and outmaneuvered in future negotiations.

Ex-Universities and Science Minister Sam Gyimah likens the agreement to a soccer match where the opposing team is the both referee and rule-maker.

The agreement endorsed by EU leaders last weekend includes the legally binding terms of the U.K.'s departure and an ambitious but vague declaration on future relations.

Gyimah said Saturday that the agreement was "a deal in name only. We've got a wish-list of aspirations that we intend to negotiate with the EU (after) we've lost our voice, our veto and our vote."

Britain's Parliament is due to vote on the accord Dec. 11.
Sam Gyimah resigns as British Minister of State for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in protest to Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit withdrawal deal.