PM’S LETTER
DESPERATE Theresa May today goes over the heads of MPs to appeal directly to the nation to back her Brexit deal.
As things stand, the PM knows she faces defeat when the deal comes before the Commons next month as enemies on all sides gang up on her.
So she’s written an open letter to the British people imploring voters to put pressure on wavering MPs to back her.
She hopes it might just give her the numbers she needs to get her Brexit through and reunite a warring nation.
She wrote: “We will then begin a new chapter in our national life. I want that to be a moment of renewal and reconciliation for our whole country.
“It must put aside the labels of ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ for good and we come together again as one people. To do that we need to get on with Brexit now by getting behind this deal.”
Mrs May is to launch a new website today to sell her deal. She will tour the country, and blitz social media in what Whitehall dubbed “the air war”.
The PM is set to get backing today from all 27 EU states at the special summit in Brussels. EU Council president Donald Tusk urged leaders to support the plan, telling them: “No-one has reasons to be happy. But we were all looking for a good and fair agreement.
PRESSURE
“And I believe we have finally found the best possible compromise.”
He even quoted Freddie Mercury on the 27th anniversary of the singer’s death, tweeting: “Friends will be friends – right till the end”, saying it should be the summit motto.
Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez tried to throw a last minute spanner in the works over Gibraltar’s future. But pressure from other EU leaders, including Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, persuaded him to not carry out a summit boycott.
In a classic face-saving fudge, Mr Sanchez said the UK had provided “sufficient guarantees to reach a solution to a conflict that has lasted more than 300 years”. In fact, all the UK has promised is that a future EU-UK trade treaty would not automatically apply to Gibraltar. That will be rubber-stamped by other leaders.
Mrs May said Gibraltar was “covered by the whole withdrawal agreement” and its sovereignty “will not change”. Britain is adamant its 30,000 citizens will stay British as long as they want.
EU leaders were furious with Sanchez for trying to mess up today’s summit. They accused him of trying to win votes for regional elections in Andalusia, next to Gibraltar.
The summit will approve two documents – a withdrawal agreement set in stone and a political declaration on the UK’s future relationship with the EU.
Jeremy Corbyn branded this “26 pages of waffle” containing only vague aspirations and accused Mrs May of a “blindfold Brexit”.
But in a bid to placate MPs, No10 sources said although the declaration