Barnier leaves May facing Brexit humiliation

Hopes of a breakthrough dashed as Brussels refuses to budge after accusing PM of playing ‘blame game’

THERESA MAY’S hopes of a last-minute Brexit breakthrough appeared doomed last night after a “total breakdown of trust” between London and Brussels.

A speech by Mrs May aimed at pushing the EU into giving ground backfired spectacularly as Brussels accused her of playing a “blame game”.

Michel Barnier, the EU’S chief Brexit negotiator, responded to the speech with the unprecedented step of posting on Twitter details of the EU’S current offer, which exposed just how badly talks had gone over the past week.

Mr Barnier said that if Britain was not prepared to accept minor changes to the deal offered by him, the EU would revert to the offer of a Northern Ireland-only backstop – which was rejected out of hand months ago by Mrs May. Sources in Brussels said Mr Barnier’s patience with UK negotiators had worn out, and that Mrs May “has never been able to demonstrate a stable majority for any of her decisions”.

Stephen Barclay, the Brexit Secretary, told Mr Barnier: “Now is not the time to re-run old arguments.”

Eurosceptics said Mr Barnier’s offer would not enable Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, to change his legal advice on the backstop being indefinite, meaning it is certain to be rejected when MPS vote on the deal on Tuesday.

One leading Tory Brexiteer said: “Barnier has just made it harder, not easier, for Geoffrey Cox to give his legal blessing to this deal. The deal is dead as things stand.” The DUP said the proposal was “a non-starter” as it meant a border in the Irish Sea. Nigel Dodds, the DUP Westminster leader, said it meant “going backwards to something rejected a year ago”.

Earlier, Mrs May predicted that Britain “may never leave” the EU as she warned rebel MPS they would trigger “a moment of crisis” if they rejected her Brexit deal on Tuesday.

In her bleakest Brexit speech to date, the Prime Minister said “no one knows what will happen” if the Government loses the vote on the EU Withdrawal Agreement, as “the only certainty would be ongoing uncertainty”.

Mrs May’s only hope of getting MPS to back her deal – rejected in a record Government defeat in January – was to

secure concessions on the backstop, designed to prevent a hard border in Ireland if a trade deal is not reached.

But Mr Barnier’s only offer was to beef up an arbitration process, enabling Britain to ask for the backstop to end if the EU was not using its “best endeavours” to find an alternative.

He added that if that was not enough, mainland Britain could choose to leave the backstop unilaterally, but Northern Ireland would have to remain in a customs union to avoid a hard border.

Mrs May spent months negotiating an all-uk backstop, meaning negotiations have effectively gone backwards.

EU sources said there was still a chance Mrs May could fly to Brussels early on Monday to sign off a revised deal, but Downing Street played down hopes of a breakthrough as it said there were “no plans” for her to travel there.

If the deal is rejected on Tuesday, MPS will vote on whether to block a nodeal Brexit and whether to delay Britain’s exit from the EU, due on March 29.

‘There has been a breakdown in trust. Mr Barnier’s tweets are indicative of total exasperation’

Separately, ministers have been warned that MPS supporting an amendment to delay Brexit could “politicise the monarchy” and lead to a “full blown constitutional crisis” causing the Government to “lose its ability to govern” according to leaked documents seen by The Daily Telegraph. The explosive memo warned that supporting any amendment re-tabled by Labour’s Yvette Cooper and Tories Oliver Letwin and Nick Boles could pave the way for a Bill to change the day of the UK’S EU exit and bind the Government into a permanent customs union.

Speaking in Grimsby yesterday, Mrs May told EU leaders: “It needs just one more push to address the final specific concerns of our Parliament. So let’s not hold back.”

The speech “went down badly” in Brussels, according to diplomatic sources, as Mr Barnier and others felt she was trying to offload the blame on to the EU. It triggered Mr Barnier’s curt tweets, in which he said: “We are not interested in the blame game, we are interested in the result.” One EU diplomat said: “There has been a total breakdown in trust. Mr Barnier’s tweets are indicative of total exasperation.”