Your damning Brexit verdict: E&S readers reject Theresa May's deal
MPs have been urged to vote against Theresa May's under-fire Brexit deal in a shock Express & Star poll.
More than 5,000 readers took part in the newspaper's latest poll on Britain's departure from the EU – and the vast majority of them gave a withering assessment of the Prime Minister's Brexit deal.
A total of 68 per cent of readers called on MPs to vote down her plan when it goes before the Commons next week, while a staggering 85 per cent said they were unhappy with the Government's handling of the negotiations.
It comes as Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay made a direct appeal to E&S readers, pledging to address their concerns directly in a Q&A session.
The poll also saw less than three in 10 readers support a second referendum, with 72 per cent saying they would vote Leave if another vote was held.
The Black Country and Staffordshire had some of the highest pro-Brexit areas in the country when the referendum was held in 2016, with nearly 70 per cent voting out in some boroughs.
Reaction
Today MPs on both sides of the Brexit divide said they would vote against Mrs May's plan.
Wolverhampton North East Labour MP Emma Reynolds, who sits on the Brexit Select Committee, said: "I'm not surprised so many Express & Star readers want MPs to vote against the deal.
"Constituents have contacted me urging me to vote against it, and that's what I will be doing. The truth is the Prime Minister's deal pleases nobody.
"For people who voted for Brexit, it is not a clean enough break. For people who support the EU, it doesn't provide close enough ties.
"Instead of bringing the country together, she has produced a deal that pleases hardly anybody."
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Another committee member, Pat McFadden, the Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East, said Mrs May's deal would 'turn Britain into rule takers not rule makers'.
Brexiteer Michael Fabricant, the Tory MP for Lichfield, said the deal is a 'betrayal' of the Brexit vote.
Mrs May is on a tour of the UK attempting to sell her Brexit deal, but she appears to be fighting a losing battle with around two thirds of MPs likely to oppose it in Parliament.
The results
The Prime Minister has made a monumental mess of the Brexit negotiations – but Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t do any better.
That's the damning verdict of Express & Star readers as the nation heads towards next week’s crucial Commons vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
More than 5,000 readers took part in our poll, and the results suggest they were united in taking a dim view of the Government’s handling of Brexit over the last two years.
Seven out of 10 people urged MPs to vote against Mrs May’s draft withdrawal agreement, which has been approved by Brussels bureaucrats despite overwhelming opposition in the UK.
And Mrs May’s handling of the negotiations also got the thumbs down in our poll, with just 15 per cent of readers believing the Prime Minister and her Brexit team had done a good job.
But our poll also showed that people have clearly been unimpressed with the work of the Labour Party leadership on the issue.
Many have viewed the party’s policy on Brexit as being a confused muddle, a feeling borne out by our poll results which showed that less than two in 10 (18 per cent) respondents thought Jeremy Corbyn would do a better job in the negotiations than Mrs May.
Defeat in the Commons vote next week would almost certainly signal a Tory challenge to Mrs May’s leadership, but almost almost two-thirds of our readers (64 per cent) thought she should save them the trouble and resign.
The Black Country and Staffordshire voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU in the June 2016 referendum, and there appears to be little appetite across the region for another public vote.
Nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) of respondents in our poll said they would not support a second referendum, with just 28 per cent backing a ‘people’s vote’.
If there was a referendum – a move which is being pushed by the Lib Dems and could eventually be backed by Labour – E&S readers are crystal clear which way they will vote.
In a series of polls we ran prior to the EU referendum, 80 per cent of people backed Leave, and it appears that very little has changed over the past two years.
A second referendum would see 72 per cent vote Leave and 26 per cent back Remain, with two per cent of people unsure.
The political turmoil over Britain’s departure from the EU has led many on both sides of the argument to speculate that Brexit may never happen – a view shared by around two in five (41 per cent) respondents to our poll.
A total of 59 per cent of people believe Brexit will happen.
Despite clear concerns expressed by a series of reports into Britain’s economic future post-Brexit, 64 per cent of E&S readers are optimistic that the country has a bright future.
Interestingly, it has been widely suggested that a huge part of the reason behind the Brexit vote in the first place was a general disenchantment with Britain’s political system and our elected members.
The responses to our poll suggest that this position has not improved over the last two years – in fact, it may have deteriorated further.
One thing is certain. The Brexit vote has opened up divisions in Parliament that cross party lines and have created new levels of friction.
And the public is clearly not impressed.
