May outlines plan to change or remove the Northern Ireland backstop from the EU withdrawal agreement
6102 Mins Read
As Prime Minister Theresa May prepared her next move in Britain’s deadlocked Brexit battle, a senior opposition politician said Sunday that it’s unlikely the U.K. will leave the European Union as scheduled on March 29.
May is due to present Parliament with a revised Brexit plan on Monday, after the divorce deal she had struck the EU was rejected by lawmakers last week. With just over two months until Britain is due to leave the bloc, some members of Parliament are pushing for the U.K. to delay its departure until the country’s divided politicians can agree on a way forward.
A government minister, however, warned that failure to deliver on Brexit would betray voters and unleash a “political tsunami.”
Meanwhile, Ireland on Sunday rejected the possibility of an alternative deal for the Irish border post Brexit but said it continued to support the backstop as outlined in the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
“We remain united [and] focused on protecting Ireland,” Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney wrote on Twitter. “That includes continued support for the EU/UK agreed [Withdrawal Agreement] in full, including the Backstop as negotiated.”
UK Prime Minister Theresa May held a conference call with ministers on Sunday afternoon, outlining a plan for a position on the backstop that her Conservative members and her Northern Irish supporters in the DUP would support.
Earlier in the day, The Sunday Times said aides to May believed a deal with Dublin would remove the huge opposition to the country’s withdrawal agreement setting out its divorce from the European Union.
