The resignations of Brexit minister Dominic Raab and work and pensions minister Esther McVey in protest at May's draft deal for leaving the European Union pushed sterling down as much as 1.9 per cent against the US dollar. Prime Minister Theresa May battled on Thursday to save a draft divorce deal with the European Union after her Brexit secretary and other ministers quit in protest at an agreement they say will trap Britain in the bloc's orbit for years.Just over 12 hours after May announced that her team of top ministers had agreed to the terms of the draft agreement, Brexit minister Dominic Raab and work and pensions minister Esther McVey quit, saying they could not support it.Their departure, and the resignations of two junior ministers, shakes May's divided government and her Brexit strategy, raising the prospect of Britain leaving the EU without a deal. The Prime Minister’s leadership of the British government and the Conservative and Unionist Party has never seemed more in doubt after the terms of her draft withdrawal agreement caused a number of her ministers to resign in protest, but the political landscape could be confusing for observers too busy to keep up with at least four years of intrigues and infighting. Backstops and Customs and More, Oh My

After Brexit, the European Union’s only land border with the United Kingdom will run along the frontier between the Republic of Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland. Mr Raab said he could not support Mrs May as he refused to back "the regulatory regime proposed for Northern Ireland" or what he described as an "indefinite backstop arrangement". The Bank of England declined to comment.In parliament, lawmakers from her Conservative Party and the opposition parties took turns to rubbish the draft deal, a sign May faces an all but impossible task to get the agreement through the House of Commons.Many criticised the draft deal, agreed with the EU on Tuesday, for making Britain a "vassal" state, beholden to the bloc's rules even after leaving in March next year.Others said an agreement on the so-called backstop would tear Britain apart, leaving Northern Ireland all but in the EU's single market.It took an hour of parliamentary questions before she was asked a friendly, rather than hostile, one, with a Conservative lawmaker saying May had done the best she could.It was the backstop arrangement, which would see Britain and the EU establishing a single customs territory, that spurred most of the criticism and the resignations of her senior ministers. "I cannot reconcile the terms of the proposed deal with the promises we made to the country in our manifesto at the last election," Raab said.Less than five months until Britain leaves the EU on March 29, the resignations put May's Brexit strategy in doubt.EU leaders are ready to meet on Nov. 25 to sign off on the divorce deal, or Withdrawal Agreement, but French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe summed up the uncertainty when he said events in London raised concerns about whether it would be ratified. Raab said there would be a devastating impact on public trust in the government unless it changed course on Brexit. Northern Ireland in the meantime will be subject to a different relationship with the EU from the rest of the UK and while I agree there should be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, the economic and constitutional integrity of the the United Kingdom must be respected.”

The resignation came just minutes after president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, said that the EU will meet to finalise the Brexit deal with the UK on 25 November. Moreover, she warned that, if Brussels would not agree a free trade agreement on such terms, she was clear that “no deal is better than a bad deal”.
Minister of State for Northern Ireland Shailesh Vara, Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union Dominic Raab, and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Esther McVey resign in protest of Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plan.