Brexit: UK ministers falling like dominoes

Dominic Raab, the UK's Brexit secretary, who was nominally the chief British negotiator for the deal now on the table said on Thursday: " I cannot in good conscience support the terms proposed for our deal with the EU." Raab was reportedly disgruntled at being sidelined in the negotiations in favor of Olly Robbins — a civil servant who's close to May.

Esther McVey, the work and pensions minister, tendered her resignation shortly after Raab. In a letter to May she wrote that "It will be no good trying to pretend to [voters] that this deal honors the result of the referendum when it is obvious to everyone it doesn't."

Shailesh Vara, the junior Northern Ireland minister, became the first member of May's government to resign over the deal on Thursday. Vara, who voted for remain in the 2016 referendum, said May's deal "leaves the UK in a half-way house with no time limit on when we will finally be a sovereign nation."

Suella Braverman, a junior minister in the Department for Exiting the European Union, also quit saying in a letter "I now find myself unable to sincerely support the deal agreed yesterday by cabinet." The proposed Northern Ireland backstop, she wrote, was not what the British people voted for, and threatened to break up the United Kingdom.

Junior Education Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan said in her resignation letter that it was now clear to her that "the negotiations have been built on the UK trying to appease the EU and we have allowed ourselves to be led into a deal which is unacceptable to the 17.4 million voters who asked for us to step away from the EU project and become an independent nation once again."

Ranil Jayawardena, parliamentary private secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, wrote in his resignation letter that the draft deal is not fair to those who voted to leave the EU "taking back control of our laws, our borders and our money. The draft agreement does not do that."

Jo Johnson, the younger brother of Boris, who resigned as foreign secretary over Brexit in July, set the ball rolling last week after he resigned as transport minister over what he called Theresa May's "delusional" Brexit plans. Johnson — who backs Britain remaining in the EU — said he is supporting calls for a second referendum on whether the country should leave the bloc.