Theresa May’s hopes of getting EU leaders to help her push her Brexit deal through parliament have been dealt a severe blow as she prepares to return home and face her party.
The prime minister headed to Brussels for a winter summit with a promise to push for legal assurances that the Irish backstop would only be temporary.
She said when she arrived: “I don’t expect an immediate breakthrough but what I do hope is that we can start work as quickly as possible on the assurances that are necessary.”
Earlier
Theresa May appealed directly to EU leaders to help her save her Brexit deal, insisting that it is the only one that can win a majority in parliament — but offered no clear path for securing it.
POLITICO reports that while addressing her fellow heads of government at the European Council summit in Brussels Thursday, May repeated her call for fresh assurances on the controversial backstop plan — a key component of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement designed to avoid the need for a hard border on the island of Ireland.
She said the EU could help change MPs’ minds on the backstop with the right assurances and warned that unless attitudes among Conservative Brexiteers and the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party could be shifted, the U.K. risked an “accidental no deal, with all the disruption that would bring.”
“But we have to change the perception that the backstop could be a trap from which the U.K. could not escape. Until we do, the deal — our deal — is at risk,” she said, according to a Downing Street’s briefing on her remarks.
The Independent said Theresa May‘s Brexit plan was dealt another major blow at a meeting with EU leaders on Thursday night in a disastrous turn of events that resulted in them scrapping written commitments to help her pass her deal through parliament.
After arriving in Brussels with promises to help the prime minister, European leaders were left amazed when she turned up without any developed requests or ideas.
The 27 heads of state and government subsequently decided to delete lines from their council conclusions saying the EU “stands ready to examine whether any further assurance can be provided” and that “the backstop does not represent a desirable outcome for the union”.
Reuters on the other hand said European Union leaders assured Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday that the Brexit treaty she agreed last month but is struggling to get through UK parliament should not bind Britain forever to EU rules.
The leaders, meeting over dinner in Brussels, were responding to a plea from May, 24 hours after she survived a bid in her own party to oust her. She sought help to overcome resistance at home to the treaty’s “Irish backstop” – an insurance clause obliging Britain to follow EU trade regulations until a better way is found to avoid a damaging “hard border” across Ireland.
