Eurosceptic UK lawmaker Rees-Mogg will back PM May's deal if backstop has time limit

The leader of a faction in British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative party demanding a clean break from the European Union said he could support the government's divorce deal if there is a time limit on the so-called Northern Irish backstop.

"I can live with the de facto removal of the backstop.... I mean that if there is a clear date that says the backstop ends, and that that is in the text of the treaty or equivalent of the text of the treaty," Jacob Rees-Mogg, a leading Brexiteer in Britain’s parliament, told BBC radio.

He said the time limit should be "a short date, not a long date, then that would remove the backstop in the lifetime of parliament and that would have a reasonable effect from my point of view." (Reporting By Andrew MacAskill and Elisabeth O'Leary)