SEALED WITH A KISS
May secures key Brexit deal concessions – but will they be enough for crunch vote tonight?
THERESA May secured a critical breakthrough on Brexit last night.
after a day of confusion and rumour at Westminster, the prime minister dashed by plane to Strasbourg for emergency talks with european Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker.
Her deputy David Lidington told mps she had won legally binding changes to the Irish backstop to reassure eurosceptics that they can vote for her withdrawal agreement tonight without locking Britain into a customs union.
If the breakthrough is signed off, attorney General Geoffrey Cox is expected to set out fresh legal advice to mps today before they vote on the withdrawal agreement for the second time. the first vote resulted in a record Government defeat.
Brexit minister robin Walker said mps would tonight ‘face a fundamental choice – back the Brexit deal or risk a delay that would mean months more spent arguing about Brexit and
prolonging the current uncertainty – uncertainty that would do nothing but pass control to Brussels and increase the risks’.
Responding to the news, Jacob Rees-Mogg told BBC Newsnight: ‘It’s too early to tell definitively but it’s clearly a step in the right direction.’
The leading Eurosceptic added that it would be important to see the details and that support from the DUP would be ‘a very important and significant factor’.
Tory MP Johnny Mercer, who voted against the deal in January, said: ‘I remain hopeful that the Attorney General’s legal advice will change, that the DUP will vote with us and we can get this done.’
If the vote is lost, Mrs May has agreed to give MPs the chance to rule out No Deal tomorrow. Parliament would then be asked on Thursday whether to seek an extension of Article 50 that would delay Brexit.
A cross-party group of MPs, led by Labour’s Yvette Cooper and Tories Sir Oliver Letwin and Nick Boles, yesterday said it would then seize control of the agenda and try to force through a supersoft Brexit that would allow free movement to continue.
Some senior Tories last night said they believed Mrs May would rather call an election than lose control of the Brexit process. As a source said she had ordered her team to ‘throw the kitchen sink’ at the talks:
The Government tabled a motion including the changes to the withdrawal agreement;
The pound rose sharply on the international currency markets as traders gambled Mrs May was on the brink of a deal;
DUP leader Arlene Foster – whose support is seen as vital – was being briefed on details of the plan last night by Tory chief whip Julian Smith;
Remainer MPs warned Mrs May would be found ‘in contempt of Parliament’ if she tried to pull the planned votes ruling out No Deal on March 29 and authorising a Brexit delay;
Sources in Brussels said EU negotiator Michel Barnier rounded on Mr Cox for suggesting at the weekend that the UK should be able to seek exit from the backstop on the day it begins;
The Irish cabinet was summoned to emergency talks in Dublin to discuss the concessions being offered by the EU.
After weeks of talks, the EU is understood to have agreed on a legally- binding document in which Brussels accepts it ‘cannot act with the intention of applying the backstop indefinitely’.
Failure to keep the promise would allow the UK to seek legal arbitration that could open up a route out of a mechanism which Eurosceptics fear could be used to keep Britain in a customs union against its will.
The second strand of the deal would give legal status to a joint letter sent by Mr Juncker and EU Council president Donald Tusk in January that offered a range of assurances – including one that accepts the backstop cannot supersede the Good Friday Agreement.
The third, and most contentious, element of the legal package is the ‘unilateral declaration’, which was resisted by Dublin. The EU would not be required to
‘Throw the kitchen sink’
endorse the statement but would agree not to dispute it in public.
Brussels has also agreed to put much more emphasis on agreeing ‘alternative arrangements’ to keep open the land border on the island of Ireland.
Brexiteer MPs said the plans would be examined by a ‘star chamber’ of Eurosceptic lawyers led by Sir Bill Cash today to decide whether Mr Cox would be justified in altering his advice.
Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith said he was ‘open-minded’ about whether the changes would go far enough to win his support. But he said Eurosceptic MPs would need time to make their own legal assessment, adding: ‘The key thing is that the Attorney General should be able to say that he has changed his opinion and no longer is the backstop an entrapment as he said previously.’
In the Commons, Brexiteer Tory MP Mark Francois questioned whether Mr Cox would be ‘marking his own homework’ because he had helped to draw up the agreement.
But other MPs groaned and said ‘no, no, no’.
AFTER seemingly endless months of frustration, we may at last be on the verge of a breakthrough.
At 8 o’clock last night, after a long and onerous day in London, the indefatigable Theresa May flew to Strasbourg in a dramatic last-ditch bid to push her Brexit deal over the line.
Just hours before she was due to face down a fractious House of Commons, the Prime Minister was still pressing Commission President Jean- Claude Juncker to provide the guarantees she needed on the Northern Ireland backstop. And to her enormous credit, her persistence appears to have paid off.
We are told Mrs May has secured a legally binding joint instrument – carrying the same force as the Withdrawal Agreement – which prevents the EU from applying the backstop indefinitely.
Technological alternative arrangements to the backstop will be actively pursued (so-called ‘Maximum Facilitation’) to avoid a hard Irish border.
And there is also talk of a declaration by the UK that nothing can stop us unilaterally withdrawing from the backstop. We don’t yet know whether this remarkable package will convince the Democratic Unionists and Tory hardBrexiteers to back the deal. But if it doesn’t, they should be ashamed of themselves.
Mrs May has fulfilled her side of the Brexit bargain – ensuring the backstop will not leave us in a customs union forever, or see Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of the UK.
For the hardliners to snub her after all this would be an act of moral bankruptcy.
And if they do cast down her deal on a point of perverse principle, the consequences could be grave indeed. Their vandalism would pave the way for the so- called Cooper/Boles amendment, passing control of the Brexit process from the Government and placing it in Parliament’s hands.
But there’s absolutely no agreement between MPs on the way forward. And even if there were, all the options suggested so far are either unattainable or fail to honour the 2016 referendum result. It is a recipe for delay, chaos and obfuscation.
In her fantasy world, Labour’s Yvette Cooper suggests a series of ‘indicative votes’ in the vain hope that some proposal – however flawed – might sneak through.
That’s not a strategy, it’s a lottery. The best it would achieve is some ghastly chimera that pleases no one – least of all the long-suffering public. Indeed it could very well mean no Brexit at all. And who would lead this New Model Army of backbenchers? The last time Parliament seized control of Government, they had Oliver Cromwell at the helm.
It’s hard to see Ms Cooper, Independent Group poster boy Chuka Umunna, or Tory dissident Anna Soubry showing the same leadership qualities. The whole proposition is simply absurd. So let’s get back to reality. The only deal which is both attainable and honourable is Mrs May’s deal – especially with a solution to the backstop.
For the hard-Brexiteers, it meets all their key requirements – control of our borders, laws and trade, fishing and farming rights and no more exorbitant subscription payments. For Remainers, it preserves the close and amicable relationship with Europe they crave.
The Mail has backed this deal from the start and we strongly believe we carry with us the hopes of a large majority of the public. So to all politicians we say, set your private passions aside and do your duty to your people.
The whole country and its future prosperity hangs on this deal. For hardliners to sabotage it in the name of spurious purism would not only betray Brexit, but also our overwhelming national interest.
They must put Britain first.