FILE PHOTO - British Conservative Party Member of Parliament Jacob Rees-Mogg is seen outside is home in London, Britain, February 14, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

LONDON (Reuters) - 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.”