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Early general election could ‘kill’ Brexit, says Matt Hancock

‘I’m with Brenda from Bristol,’ says health secretary

Ashley Cowburn
Political Correspondent
Saturday 18 May 2019 16:15 BST
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An early general election risks “killing” Brexit, and Theresa May’s successor must avoid going to the public until the UK has left the EU, a cabinet minister has warned.

Health secretary Matt Hancock made the remarks as a survey of Conservative members put Boris Johnson as the clear favourite to succeed the prime minister, and as cross-party talks between the government and Labour collapsed without a deal.

Len McCluskey – the Unite the Union boss and close ally of Jeremy Corbyn – on Friday demanded a “true people’s vote” in the form of a general election, saying the UK faced the prospect of a hard Brexiteer as prime minister.

But Mr Hancock, who is expected to enter the Tory leadership contest when the prime minister formally kicks off the process, said whoever won the premiership had to deliver on Brexit before considering a general election.

“I think a general election before we’ve delivered Brexit would be a disaster. People don’t want it. I’m with Brenda from Bristol. We need to take responsibility for delivering on the referendum result,” Mr Hancock told The Daily Telegraph.

“Who knows what the outcome of a general election would be under these circumstances? A general election before that not only risks Jeremy Corbyn, but it risks killing Brexit altogether. We’ve got to deliver Brexit in this parliament, then we can move forward.”

The health secretary’s comments also came as Ms May faced growing clamour from within her own party to step down immediately in the aftermath of the collapse in talks between the government and the Labour Party.

Mr Corbyn dramatically pulled the plug on cross-party talks after more than six weeks, saying they had “gone as far as they can” and the parties had been “unable to bridge important policy gaps”.

Earlier this week Ms May bowed to pressure to agree a timetable at the start of next month for a Conservative leadership contest if she – as many in Westminster expect – loses a critical vote on her Brexit legislation.

But after the breakdown in the negotiations, the former minister David Jones said the PM should recognise that “now is the time that she should stand down”.

“On the Conservative benches, most people now want the PM to step down as quickly as possible,” he told The Independent. “Prolonging this is just wasting time at a time when we don’t have much time to waste.”

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