Tory donor threatens to stop funding over Brexit plans-Week 08

A major Tory donor has warned that he will stop funding the party if Theresa May's Brexit plans involve the UK coming out of the single market.

Sir Andrew Cook, who has donated more than £1.2m to the party, told The Timesthe country could "sleepwalk to disaster" if it made such a move.

The engineering firm chairman said at least one of his factories was almost "entirely dependent" on access to it.

Sir Andrew backed the Remain campaign in the EU referendum.

He told the newspaper that the "economic arguments of staying in the single market are overwhelming" and it would be a "catastrophe" if the country left.

"It is very difficult to make a political donation to a party when, although I support it ideologically, I do not believe that my interests and my ideology are ad idem with the principal Brexiteers," he said.

Theresa May has insisted that she wants firms to have the "maximum freedom to trade with and operate in the single market".

But the prime minister is due to confirm in a speech later this month that the UK will have two fundamental red lines in its Brexit negotiations - control of its borders and freedom from the European Court of Justice.

She has pledged to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty - so getting leaving talks with the EU under way - by the end of March. These can take up to two years, unless an agreement is reached to prolong the process.

In November last year, the Conservatives reported more than £2.8m in donationsin the three months after the EU referendum - the highest amount of the major parties.

keywords:

dependent 依賴

referendum 全民投票

overwhelming 壓倒

ideologically 意識形態

insisted 堅持

source:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38540813

introduction:

這篇文章就是一位在英國的政治人物，Andrew Cook在向英國民眾講英國脫歐的好處，一直在向社會大眾灌輸英國脫歐會有非常大的利益等等。可是現在再回顧過去這位人物說的一些對於英國的利益等卻沒有任何一項實現。可是這個議題公投可不是鬧著玩的，只有一次機會公投。所以現在的英國民眾非常後悔，而這位人物現在在英國也是被唾棄得非常徹底。