Theresa May secures ‘legally binding changes’ to Brexit deal with second vote imminent

The EU has issued a stern warning to Theresa May after she secured changes to her Brexit deal, saying it might never go ahead if changes don’t sail through the UK parliament tomorrow.

The British government has secured “legally binding changes” from the European Union to overcome a key stumbling block on the Brexit deal.

Cabinet office minister David Lidington told the House of Commons on Monday night that the two sides agreed on a “joint instrument” clarifying the withdrawal deal.

The measure is intended to reassure Britain it won’t be trapped forever in a mechanism designed to prevent a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

May flew to Strasbourg last on Monday to try to secure a last-minute deal with the EU. Picture: Vincent Kessler/AP

Concerns over the border measure were the main reason Britain’s parliament rejected the deal in January. Politicians are due to vote on it again tomorrow.

“In politics, sometimes you get a second chance. It is what you do with this second chance that counts. Because there will be no third chance,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said.

“Let’s be crystal clear about the choice: it is this deal or Brexit might not happen at all,” he said.

Mrs May said the changes should overcome politicians’ qualms about a mechanism in the deal designed to keep an open border between Britain’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. The mechanism, known as the backstop, is a safeguard that would keep the UK in a customs union with the EU until a permanent new trading relationship is in place.

Brexit-supporters in Britain fear the backstop could be used to bind the country to EU regulations indefinitely.

But Mrs May said the new wording “will guarantee that the EU cannot act with the intent of applying the backstop indefinitely.”

“Now is the time to come together to back this improved Brexit deal and deliver on the instruction of the British people,” she said.

But the changes appear to fall well short of Brexiteers’ demands for a unilateral British exit mechanism from the backstop.

Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29 unless they seek a delay. Picture: Isabel Infantes/AFP

Pro-Brexit UK politicians said they would read the fine print and wait for the judgment of Britain’s Attorney-General before deciding how to vote tomorrow.

Announcing the breakthrough in Britain’s House of Commons, Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington said politicians faced “a fundamental choice ... to vote for the improved deal or to plunge this country into a political crisis.” And Juncker warned Britain “there will be no new negotiations” if politicians rejected the deal again.

Britain is due to pull out of the EU in less than three weeks, on March 29, but the government has not been able to win parliamentary approval for its agreement with the bloc on withdrawal terms and future relations

The impasse has raised fears of a chaotic “no-deal” Brexit that could mean major disruption for businesses and people in Britain and the 27 remaining EU countries.

“This is a government in chaos, with a country in chaos because of this mess,” Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said.

The EU is frustrated at what it sees as the inability of Britain’s weak and divided government to lay out a clear vision for Brexit. It is irritated, too, that Britain is seeking changes to an agreement that May herself helped negotiate and approve.

May has been working frantically to save her deal, speaking by phone to eight EU national leaders since Friday, including French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

If parliament throws out May’s deal again tomorrow, politicians will vote over the following two days on whether to leave the EU without an agreement - an idea likely to be rejected - or to ask the EU to delay Brexit beyond the scheduled March 29 departure date.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said there were no more chances for the UK to negotiate another Brexit deal. Picture: Frederick Florin/AFP

Brexiteer Steve Baker said he was waiting to see the text of the deal, telling Sky News: “We may or may not be able to support it. We will make our own decisions.

“If in 5 to 10 years we found ourselves trapped in the backstop, in the customs union, people would rightly curse the day we had voted for the withdrawal agreement and ask why we’d been so weak.”

Their group of lawyers will meet to analyse whether they think Britain can exit the backstop or not.

Originally published as Theresa May secures ‘legally binding changes’ to Brexit deal with second vote imminent