Merkel warns no deal is worst-case scenario for Brexit

German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Thursday welcomed a draft agreement on Britain’s withdrawal from the EU but warned that the worst case scenario would be a no-deal Brexit.

As British Prime Minister Theresa May battles to save the draft divorce deal after several ministers quit in protest, Merkel said: “The worst case, and most disorderly, is that there is no kind of no deal.”

“You have to see the alternatives and then ask: is what we have a basis? So I hope that this can be such a basis,” Merkel told reporters at a news conference on her government’s digitalisation strategy.

“We have a document on the table that Britain and the EU 27 have agreed to, so for me there is no question at the moment whether we negotiate further,” she added.

Merkel had earlier said she was glad that negotiators had got this far and Britain and other EU members now had to examine and finalise it.

“Firstly, I am very happy that after long negotiations which were not easy, a proposal has been pulled together,” she said.

Similarly, It is “mathematically impossible’’ for British Prime Minister, Theresa May, to win a vote in parliament on the draft Brexit deal she has agreed with the EU, a leading eurosceptic lawmaker in May’s Conservative party says.

Mark Francois, Vice Chair of the European Research Group of pro-Brexit Conservatives, says at least 84 eurosceptics among the party’s 315 lawmakers plan to vote against the deal.

“I plea with you to accept the political reality we now have,” Francois told May in parliament, saying the draft deal was “dead on arrival” in the Commons, parliament’s main elected house.

The main opposition party, Labour, and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, whose 10 lawmakers prop up May’s minority government, have also suggested they will vote against the deal.

French Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, summed up the uncertainty, saying events in London raised concerns about whether the agreement would be ratified.

“We need to prepare ourselves for a no-deal Brexit,” he said.

Some lawmakers in London openly questioned whether May’s government will survive.

A challenge is triggered if 48 Conservatives write such letters. May could be toppled if 158 of her 315 lawmakers vote against her.

However, May has suffered 18 resignations from her government since last November, ten of which have been related to her approach to Brexit.

Today, three ministers: Brexit Minister, Dominic Raab; The Welfare Minister, Esther McVey and Suella Braverman, the junior Brexit minister resigned in protest at the government’s plans for leaving the EU.