London: British Prime Minister Theresa May claimed to have secured the breakthrough required to get her Brexit withdrawal agreement through a crunch vote in Parliament on Tuesday evening.
However, it was received with caution by British MPs unsure of the legal ramifications, leaving Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU) still precariously poised ahead of the March 29 Brexit deadline.
In a last-minute dash to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Monday night, May emerged alongside European Commission President Jean Claude-Juncker to declare that the UK and EU have agreed “legally binding” changes to the controversial Irish backstop clause to ensure any such arrangement would not be permanent.
The move is aimed at addressing the concerns of hard-Brexiteers in her own Conservative Party and the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which provides her government with its majority in the House of Commons.
“MPs were clear that legal changes were needed to the backstop. Today we have secured legal changes. Now is the time to come together to back this improved Brexit deal,” May said at a joint press conference with Juncker.
The EU said it had made significant concessions as two additional documents were agreed to back up the withdrawal agreement struck in December last year – a joint legally binding instrument which the UK could use to start a “formal dispute” against the EU if it tried to keep the UK tied into the backstop indefinitely and a joint statement committing both sides to find an alternative to the backstop by the end of the Brexit transition period of December 2020.
“In politics, sometimes you get a second chance. There will be no third chance… it is this deal or Brexit might not happen at all,”European Commission President Jean Claude-Juncker said, issuing a stark warning to Britain’s MPs over the importance of the parliamentary vote in the UK on Tuesday. (PTI)
