Theresa May has unveiled a last-ditch bid to rescue her Brexit plans with fresh ‘guarantees’ aimed at wooing hardline Tory Eurosceptics.
With just 17 days before the UK is scheduled to leave the EU, the Prime Minister made a dramatic dash to Strasbourg to seek concessions from Brussels chief Jean-Claude Juncker to help win over her party.
Facing the prospect of another humiliating defeat in the Commons on Tuesday, May sought to break the deadlock with a package of measures to convince her DUP partners and Brexiteer backbenchers to pass her plans.
Speaking at a press conference at midnight Strasbourg time, May admitted her previous deal “was not strong enough”.
“Today we have secured legal changes. Now is the time to come together to back this improved Brexit deal and deliver on the instruction of the British people,” she said.
But Juncker had a stark warning that the EU would not shift its position any further if May lost the crunch vote.
“In politics sometimes you get a second chance. It’s important what you do with that second chance, because there will be no third chance,” he said.
Attorney General Geoffrey Cox is set to present his updated legal analysis of the new measures to MPs, just hours before the crunch parliamentary vote.
Central to the package was a fresh legal document to prevent the UK from being indefinitely linked to EU trade rules under the Northern Ireland ‘backstop’, an insurance policy aimed at preventing a return to a hard border with Ireland post-Brexit.
A ‘joint interpretive instrument’, plus tougher arbitration between London and Brussels on any future disputes, was agreed by both sides, May’s de facto deputy David Lidington told MPs.
The newest part of the plan was a ‘unilateral’ UK statement that would be made in the event that it wanted an exit from the backstop.
Lidington stressed that talks were still ongoing, but he announced that the PM and Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay “have secured legally binding changes that strengthen and improve” her Brexit deal.
Lidington announced that if the UK was not happy with the way the EU behaved it could “suspend” the backstop, a new form of words that could sway some Tory MPs.
The 80-strong European Research Group (ERG) of backbench Conservative Brexiteers announced it would wait for its own team of lawyers to assess the plans before deciding whether to finally swing behind May and pass her deal.
ERG deputy chairman Steve Baker said the announcement appeared to fall “very short” of what was expected.
“Even by the government’s own standards this falls very far short of what [it] whipped us to vote for,” he told BBC Radio 4′s The World Tonight.
“It’s not for the first time that David [Lidington] has had to put a good gloss on something that falls short of what was expected.”
The DUP’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds demanded to know when the ‘extremely important’ issue of a unilateral UK statement would be concluded. Lidington said he hoped the detail would be concluded overnight at the latest.
The party said it would study the new documents carefully before coming to a judgment.
“We note the Prime Minister’s latest statement and update on our EU exit negotiations,” said a party spokesman.
May’s previous plans were defeated by a record 230 votes in January, forcing her to seek fresh compromises from Brussels.
If she loses the vote on Tuesday, MPs will be allowed to vote on the prospect of a no-deal exit on Wednesday.
If that is in turn defeated, the Commons will vote on Thursday on whether to delay Brexit itself beyond the March 29 date scheduled so far.
Brussels diplomats believed they had struck a deal with May at the weekend but scepticism from Cox appeared to kill her plans to travel to Brussels on Sunday.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith told the BBC earlier that “there needs to be time to look at the legalities of this”.
Several Tory MPs suggested the Prime Minister postpones tomorrow’s vote by 24 hours to give the Commons more time to examine the changes to the Withdrawal Agreement.
Charlie Elphicke (Deal and Dover) said: “If it’s such a great deal, why the rush? Why bounce the House into a vote tomorrow?
“If it’s such a good deal why do we not take a few days to cogitate, reflect, look at the deal then come to the House and have the vote when we’ve gone across the detail and we have had that chance for full and frank consideration?”