NOW GET BEHIND THIS DEAL AND LET’S UNITE BRITAIN
PM wins ‘legally binding’ changes on backstop to clinch Commons vote today
THERESA May will today issue a rallying cry to MPs to back her deal and reunite the UK after winning key concessions from the EU last night.
The Prime Minister jetted to Strasbourg yesterday to meet top Eurocrat Jean-Claude Juncker over last-ditch legal assurances to be attached to her withdrawal agreement.
Cabinet Office minister David Lidington told MPs that “legally-binding” changes that “strengthen and improve” the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration have been secured.
Mr Lidington announced that two new documents will be added to the deal to provide guarantees about the backstop.
They included a joint legally-biding instrument on the Withdrawal Agreement and protocol on Northern Ireland and a joint statement to supplement the Political Declaration outlining the UK’s future relationship with the EU.
Mr Lidington said: “The first provides confirmation that the EU cannot try to trap the UK in the backstop indefinitely and that doing so would be an explicit breach of the legally-binding commitments that both sides have agreed.”
She will put the hard-fought changes to the Commons tonight, in a crunch “meaningful vote” that could ensure Britain’s membership of the EU is brought to an end.
In a poignant twist, Mrs May held talks with Mr Juncker and chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier in the Winston Churchill building at the European Parliament.
Her deal was understood to include a series of new legal guarantees that the UK cannot be trapped indefinitely in the so-called “backstop” customs union – an insurance to keep the Irish border free of customs checks.
New documents designed to address concerns of Tory and Democratic Unionist Party MP about the backstop were believed to include a “joint interpretative instrument” designed to clarify the withdrawal agreement.
A new arbitration system is also planned to allow the UK to apply to quit the backstop if the EU is seen as acting in “bad faith”.
Negotiators are expected to agree that the guarantees will be lodged with the United Nations and included in the Political Declaration about Britain’s future relationship with the EU.
But Mrs May still faces a massive challenge to win the backing of a majority of MPs in tonight’s Commons vote. She must overturn a historic defeat, by a margin of 230 votes, in January.
Brexiteer Tory MPs vowed to scrutinise the deal before deciding whether to drop their opposition.
Former Brexit minister Steve Baker said: “Deal fever abounds at Westminster but we haven’t seen a legal text yet. We’re going to take our public duty seriously by getting the legal text and putting it to our lawyers and making sure we truly understand the legal issues.”
Last night the Government was due to table a motion for today’s debate, along with a series of documents to update MPs. Throughout a tense day at Westminster yesterday, Downing Street sought to play down hopes that a breakthrough was imminent. Whitehall insiders said Mrs May’s dash to Strasbourg was arranged to help accelerate the search for a solution, rather than sign a deal.
Mrs May has been in frantic weekend talks in the push to clinch the changes, as late glitches threatened to put an agreement out of reach.
Diplomatic sources claimed she was close to signing off a text of the deal with Mr Juncker on Sunday, only for officials to raise concerns about the wording.
Mrs May’s efforts to finalise backstop assurances then appeared to hit a fresh stumbling block yesterday, when Mr Barnier said talks were taking place “between the Government in London and the Parliament in London”, rather than the UK and Brussels.
Downing Street insisted the talks were continuing, while playing down expectations of an imminent deal.