May’s focus on deal as pressure mounts
THERESA May has brushed aside speculation of an impending vote of no confidence in her as Prime Minister, insisting she is focused on securing reassurances from EU leaders about her Brexit deal.
After calling off a parliamentary vote on the deal planned for yesterday, Mrs May held talks with fellow leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel and Mark Rutte of the Netherlands.
She said she had found a “shared determination” to address MPs’ concerns about the proposed backstop arrangement for the Irish border, in order to allow the deal to be brought back to the House of Commons and ratified.
Downing Street announced that the motion on the Brexit deal will come back to the Commons “before January 21”, with MPs expected to complete the final two days of debate before the momentous vote.
But Mrs May’s decision to delay the vote sparked a fresh wave of speculation at Westminster about new letters of no confidence being submitted by Conservative MPs to the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady.
After reports that some members of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic Tory MPs were claiming that enough letters had been submitted to trigger a vote, Mrs May was asked whether she had been told the threshold of 48 letters had been reached.
She replied: “No, I have been here in Europe dealing with the issue I have promised Parliament I would be dealing with.”
Mrs May said: “Whatever outcome we want, whatever relationship we want with the European Union in future, there is no deal available that doesn’t have a backstop within it. But we don’t want the backstop to be used and if it is, we want to be certain it is only temporary.
“It is those assurances that I will be seeking from fellow leaders over the coming days.”
Mrs May held talks with Mr Rutte before flying to Berlin for lunch with Mrs Merkel and then on to Brussels to speak with European Council President Donald Tusk and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
Mr Tusk described their meeting as “long and frank”, adding: “Clear that EU27 wants to help. The question is how.”
Earlier in the day, Mr Juncker told the European Parliament that there was “no room whatsoever for renegotiation” of the Withdrawal Agreement reached between the EU and UK last month.
Mr Juncker told MEPs the agreement was the “best deal possible” and the “only deal possible”.
But he offered a glimmer of hope to Mrs May by saying there was room to give “further clarifications and further interpretations without opening the Withdrawal Agreement”.
The delay to the “meaningful vote” by MPs means that ratification may not be possible until as late as 10 weeks before the scheduled date of Brexit on March 29.