Boris Johnson will travel to Brussels today for the crunch EU summit, as he tries to negotiate a Brexit deal before the 31 October deadline.
After “1,210 days of dithering, delay and doom”, the end could be in sight, says the Daily Mail, while The Telegraph says Brexit has been “like the Shawshank Redemption… but now we can see the light”.
The legal text of a draft Brexit deal is seen as being “pretty much ready” by the EU’s legal team, according to the BBC‘s Europe editor Katya Adler.
Talks between UK and EU negotiators will now “go down to the wire”, says Sky News, as the leaders of the member states gather. It will need to be agreed by all 28 states.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, said last night that an agreement was all but agreed and ready for a formal sign-off today, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the “final sprint” had made her confident of a breakthrough.
However, any progress the prime minister makes in Brussels could flounder back in Westminster, where Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has so far refused to sign off on Johnson’s draft agreement.
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Numerically, the DUP are seen as crucial because their own direct influence is enhanced by the promises of several Brexiteer MPs that they will only vote for a deal if the unionist party backs it.
The DUP continues to have reservations over the plans for the Irish border question, including how much say it will have over the arrangements in the future, and a late row over whether EU rates of VAT should apply in Northern Ireland is also proving an obstacle.
If a deal seems likely then MPs could decide later today whether the Commons will sit on Saturday after the summit, so Johnson can put his deal to MPs.
This Saturday is seen as a huge milestone for the PM because the Benn Act, passed by MPs trying to prevent a no-deal Brexit, legally obliges him to write to the EU asking for a delay if parliament does not agree to a deal by then.
One EU ambassador said a political rather than legal agreement was the most that could be hoped for this week, explaining: “We have not seen texts and done legal scrubbing. We will need more time for that.”
They added: “It is too late to give a final ‘yes’ tomorrow. We can give a political ‘yes’ and then come back to it.”
If they are right, Johnson looks set to be forced to break his break his “do or die” pledge to take Britain out of the EU by 31 October.
