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Three lawmakers from Britain\u2019s governing Conservatives quit over the government\u2019s \u201cdisastrous handling of Brexit\u201d on Wednesday, in a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May\u2019s attempts to unite her party around plans to leave the European Union.\nThe lawmakers, who support a second EU referendum and have long said May\u2019s Brexit strategy is being led by Conservative euroskeptics, said they would join a new independent group in parliament set up by seven former opposition Labour politicians.
\nThe resignations put May in an even weaker position in parliament, where her Brexit deal was crushed by lawmakers last month when both euroskeptics and EU supporters voted against an agreement they say offers the worst of all worlds.
\nWhile the three were almost certain to vote against any deal, the hardening of their positions undermines May\u2019s negotiating position in Brussels, where she heads later to try to secure an opening for further work on revising the agreement.
\nWith only 37 days until Britain leaves the EU, its biggest foreign and trade policy shift in more than 40 years, divisions over Brexit are redrawing the political landscape. The resignations threaten a decades-old two-party system.
\n\u201cThe final straw for us has been this government\u2019s disastrous handling of Brexit,\u201d the three lawmakers, Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston, said in a letter to May.
\nSoubry later told a news conference that the Conservative Party had been taken over by right-wing, pro-Brexit lawmakers.
\n\u201cThe truth is, the battle is over and the other side has won. The right-wing, the hard-line anti-EU awkward squad that have destroyed every (Conservative) leader for the last 40 years are now running the … party from top to toe,\u201d she said.
\nMay said she was saddened by the decision and that Britain\u2019s membership of the EU \u201chas been a source of disagreement both in our party and in our country for a long time.\u201d
\n\u201cBut by … implementing the decision of the British people we are doing the right thing for our country,\u201d she said, referring to the 2016 referendum in which Britons voted by a margin of 52-48 percent in favor of leaving the EU.
\nAsked what May would say to others considering resigning, her spokesman said: \u201cShe would, as she always has, ask for the support of her colleagues in delivering (Brexit).\u201d<\/p>\n