I'm no Neville Chamberlain: UK PM May rejects comparison to mocked war leader

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday rejected a suggestion that she was a modern-day Neville Chamberlain, the British leader mocked for claiming he had secured peace with Germany's Adolf Hitler a year before World War Two broke out.

Some lawmakers in May's Conservative Party argue that her draft divorce deal with the European Union is a capitulation to the bloc which will leave Britain subject to its rules indefinitely after the country leaves in March 2019.

Asked whether she was a modern-day Chamberlain, May told LBC radio: "No I don't and the reason is this: we are not going to be locked in forever to something that we don't want."

Chamberlain famously returned from a meeting with Hitler in 1938 waving a declaration which he said provided "peace for our time" but ultimately proved worthless and was regarded as a failed attempt to appease Nazi Germany.

He was ousted in 1940 after war broke out and replaced by Winston Churchill.

British Prime Minister Theresa May repeatedly refused on Friday to rule out allowing her senior ministers to get as so called free vote, which allows lawmakers to vote against the wishes of their party, on the draft Brexit deal.

When asked whether her cabinet will get a free vote, May said: "We will be looking at the deal when it comes back. There is cabinet collective responsibility in this country. Government policy is government policy."