Yahoo Finance EU offers to help May sell Brexit deal to MPs but rules out renegotiation
EU leaders will attempt to help Theresa May sell the Brexit deal to sceptical MPs this week after the prime minister’s chaotic climbdown over the ‘meaningful vote’.
May has postponed the vote on the deal in a bid to seek last minute concessions from the EU when she travels to Brussels for the European Council on Thursday.
Brexit has been formally added to summit agenda at the last minute and European council president Donald Tusk said EU27 leaders will “discuss how to facilitate UK ratification” of the deal.
That is likely to take the form of a statement reassuring MPs that the backstop will never need to be used.
However, that will not be legally binding and Tusk went on to warn: “We will not renegotiate the deal, including the backstop.”
The the EU’s two other major institutions also rejected pressure to re-open negotiations despite May’s negotiator, Olly Robbins, being seen in Brussels.
“We will not renegotiate the deal that is on the table right now,” said a commission spokesperson as news broke that the vote on the deal had been cancelled. “That is very clear. This is the deal and the only deal possible.”
READ MORE: EU politicians dismiss ‘almost insane’ idea of renegotiating Brexit deal
And the European parliament’s Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhostadt, made a pre-emptive strike on any attempt to tear-up the backstop, saying: “We will never let the Irish down. This delay will further aggravate the uncertainty for people and businesses.”
I can’t follow anymore. After two years of negotiations, the Tory government wants to delay the vote. Just keep in mind that we will never let the Irish down. This delay will further aggravate the uncertainty for people & businesses. It’s time they make up their mind! #brexit
— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) December 10, 2018
The blunt dismissals from across the EU came just 24 hours after May spoke by phone to Tusk and commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.
UK foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said it was “very clear” the EU would not “open the withdrawal agreement.”
Speaking during a visit to Brussels, Hunt said he believed this really was the EU’s “best and final offer” and argued it “delivers on the vast majority of what people voted for” in the 2016 referendum.
Hinting that Brexit might not happen if the deal wasn’t agreed, he warned: “There are real risks if we don’t accept this opportunity while we can grab it.”
However, in a suggestion that the current deal may not be permanent, the potential Tory leadership contender reached out to Brexit supporters by saying it could act as a “stepping stone to deliver on everything people voted for.”
The backstop solution to the Irish border, which would see the UK remain in a customs union with the EU if no trade deal is done by the end of the transition period, is the issue which most concerns the deal’s opponents.
The prime minister is “not totally comfortable” with the backstop, Hunt said. But Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said “emotive and inaccurate” comments from Westminster has “turned the the backstop into something it is not.”
READ MORE: Barnier hits back at claim Brexit deal is a ‘humiliation’ for the UK
“This is simply an insurance mechanism which kicks in if all else fails to protect peace and stable relations on the island of Ireland,” he said. “That is the way it should be seen.”
Coveney, who was in Brussels to attend a meeting of foreign ministers alongside Hunt, said Ireland is “watching closely” developments in the UK parliament on the Brexit deal.
“The Irish view is that we have been in two years of negotiation that has resulted in a withdrawal treaty that involves compromise on both sides,” he added.
“This was a very hard won compromise – both for the UK and the EU. It enables a managed, sensible exit from the EU of the UK.”
