Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May holds a news conference at Downing Street in London, Britain November 15, 2018. Matt Dunham/Pool via Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - 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.