EU ignores Theresa May’s plea to help with Brexit deal

Theresa May has been humiliatingly slapped down by the EU, which ­ignored her pleas for help in her Brexit deal.

Among a sea of ‘Nos’ Theresa May was rejected by European leaders in Brussels when she asked for help in selling her Brexit deal. Picture: AP

British Prime Minister Theresa May has been humiliatingly slapped down by the EU, which ­ignored her desperate pleas for help in rebranding the disastrous Brexit deal during a two-day summit in Brussels.

At the same time, the Conservative Party was tearing itself apart over Mrs May’s increasingly tenuous position and her flogging of a dead Brexit deal that has no chance of getting through parliament.

Blunt-speaking European leaders dismissed Mrs May’s last-ditch attempts to introduce a legal guarantee for the Irish backstop, which she called a “joint interpretative ­instrument”, and they ignored her confident assurances that she would be able to get her deal through Westminster.

Earlier over dinner while presenting the idea of the amendment, Mrs May told the European leaders: “We have to change the perception that the backstop is a trap.

“This is the only deal capable of getting through parliament.’’

Mrs May tried to persuade the EU that the withdrawal deal was still very much alive, despite having to pull it from a parliamentary vote last Monday because it was to face such a hostile reception.

“We must get this right,” she said. “Let’s hold nothing in reserve, let’s work intensively to get this over the line.”

But Mrs May’s confidence in getting the EU to ameliorate the deal proved to be a gross delusion.

Crucially, the EU, eyeing the upheaval in the British parliament and the real prospect the withdrawal deal could be made a softer Brexit or potentially a no-Brexit, responded with nothing legally binding. Instead the European Council leaders simply issued a five-point statement about the withdrawal deal, reiterating starkly in the opening paragraph: “It is not open for renegotiation.”

A small addition to what had previously been published was that the EU vowed “to work speedily’’ on a subsequent agreement — about trade — which establishes by the end of 2020 some alternative arrangements so the backstop will not need to be triggered. The EU said the backstop would only be in place “for as long as strictly necessary’’.

None of these words will satisfy the Democratic Unionist Party, nor the 117 Brexiteers who ­expressed no confidence in Mrs May’s leadership on Wednesday, nor scores of other Tory MPs who were won over by Mrs May’s pre-ballot promises.

She now faces renewed calls to bring the Brexit deal to parliament next week so it can be formally rejected and other amendments could be introduced and debated such as staging a second referendum.

Even before Mrs May’s embarrassing failure in Brussels, former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab called on her to resign the morning after she had just won a confidence vote by 200 to 119.

She will face a barrage of fresh resignation calls now that the EU has treated her so coldly.

European Commission president Jean Claude Junker said the EU would begin its future relationship with Britain as soon as the withdrawal deal was signed.

Mr Juncker said there was mistrust of the EU in Britain: “I have problems understanding my own state of mind and even harder to understand the state of mind of the British MPs.

“Following the debate in Westminster there seems to be a very wide gap in various views — a huge variety — and that leads us to think there wouldn’t be an agreement one way or another.’’

Insiders at the EU dinner said German Chancellor Angela Merkel had to ask Mrs May ­repeatedly to spell out exactly what it was that Britain wanted.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party is edging closer to tabling a vote of no confidence in the government. Such is the febrile atmosphere in the Conservative Party, Tory MPs are being openly questioned if they are considering crossing the floor with Labour in a no-confidence vote that would then force the Conservatives to present a new leader within 14 days.

Tory MP Nicky Morgan said she believed there was an “inevitability’’ that the hardest Brexiteers “are going to walk’’.

“There may be some sort of ­reconfiguration of parties on the right of the UK political spectrum and that may be something we are going to have to accept in order to get a Brexit deal through the House of Commons,’’ she said.