Theresa May has agreed a revised Brexit deal in last-ditch talks with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, as she seeks to avoid a crushing Commons defeat.
The prime minister hopes that new attempts at legal assurances that Britain cannot be “trapped” in a customs union will win over her critics when MPs have a “meaningful vote” on the deal on Tuesday.
Mrs May agreed what she claimed were three important changes to the withdrawal deal after hastily-arranged talks with Mr Juncker at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Monday night.
Mr Juncker said this was the last chance for MPs to support the Brexit deal: “There will be no further interpretations of interpretations or reassurances on reassurances,” he said. “It’s this deal or Brexit may not happen at all.”
Key Papers
The big test will be whether it is enough to win over more than 100 Tory Eurosceptics who voted down her deal in January, along with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the pro-Brexit Tory European Research Group, gave Downing Street some cause for optimism when he said of the new deal: “It’s too early to tell definitively but it’s clearly a step in the right direction.”
The DUP said it would “study” the deal, but Steve Baker, a Tory Eurosceptic hardliner, said MPs should fear “entrapment” in the backstop arrangement intended to stop a hard border in Ireland.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the negotiations had failed and MPs should reject it on Tuesday. “This evening’s agreement with the European Commission does not contain anything approaching the changes Theresa May promised Parliament, and whipped her MPs to vote for.”
The focus will now shift to Geoffrey Cox, attorney-general, who will give his legal advice on the backstop on Tuesday. He had previously warned that it could “endure indefinitely”.
Brexiter MPs will want to be assured that the new changes are legally watertight and that the backstop can never lead to Britain being kept in a customs union against its will. Mr Cox was said to be “agonising” over the issue last night.
Mrs May, at a joint press conference with Mr Juncker, outlined three changes to the Brexit deal which the European Commission president said amounted to “meaningful legal assurances”.
-
The first is a joint interpretative instrument stating that the EU could not deliberately seek to keep Britain in the backstop by failing to negotiate a new trade deal in good faith. If it did, Britain could seek arbitration and an exit from the arrangement.
-
The second is a joint UK/EU statement in the non-binding political declaration committing both sides to developing new technologies at the border to replace the need for the backstop by December 2020.
-
The third is a UK-only declaration — initially opposed by Mr Juncker — that there would be nothing to stop Britain launching a procedure to ultimately get out of the backstop should the EU not act in good faith and with its best endeavours to agree a free trade deal to supersede the backstop.
Mrs May urged MPs to back the deal. “Now is the time to come together,” she said. The prime minister will open a Commons debate on the revised package on Tuesday.
Downing Street hopes that if Mr Cox provides MPs with legal assurances that the backstop is truly temporary, then the DUP will back the deal, in turn winning over scores of Tory Eurosceptics.
Recommended
“We can’t be seen as more unionist than the unionists,” said one Tory Brexiter. Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, held talks late in the evening with Julian Smith, the chief whip.
EU diplomats were doubtful that the concessions would allow Mrs May to overturn a 230-vote deficit suffered when she put her deal to the Commons in January.
Even Mrs May’s allies regard a 50-vote defeat as the best the prime minister might expect, but that could provide the platform for her to hold further talks ahead of a possible further vote on her deal.
In Brussels the commission briefed EU27 ambassadors that Brexit could be delayed until May 24, the day after European elections are due to start. Any extension beyond this date would require the bloc’s leaders to clarify the legal consequences of Britain not participating in the elections, because the UK would still be a member state.
The UK government confirmed on Monday that, if Mrs May’s deal were defeated, there would be two further Commons votes — on whether to leave without a deal and on whether to delay Brexit. These would be held on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.
Recommended
Leo Varadkar called an emergency meeting of his cabinet in Dublin on Monday night to discuss the emerging deal, delaying his scheduled departure to the US on a St Patrick’s day visit.
At one point Mr Varadkar adjourned the talks to speak by phone with Mr Juncker in Strasbourg. The meeting was set to resume shortly after 11pm to finalise a formal response to the agreement.
But the firm view in Irish government circles is that Dublin can live with the deal. “We are calm here but not relaxed until Westminster eliminates the possibility of no deal,” said a senior Irish official who is involved in Brexit talks.
Although the mood in Dublin had been downbeat during the day, the official said the agreement represented an effort to pass the treaty “with legal guarantees and reassurances that complement the withdrawal agreement without reopening [it]”.
“We feel it really proves that if it ever came into effect the backstop would not be permanent and the EU has no desire for it ever to be permanent.”
