Brexit: Theresa May hopes to win 'significant progress' towards a new deal in the coming days
Theresa May hopes to win “significant progress” towards a new Brexit deal in the coming days, allowing her to ask the commons to show backing for her strategy early next week.
Over the next four days she aims to make headway with EU negotiators on a new approach, before attempting to win support from key European leaders at a summit on Sunday.
Claims that the prime minister may put a full new deal to parliament early next week were downplayed by government insiders, but it is likely that Ms May will table a motion asking MPs to back her approach as she takes it forward – something that would show Brussels she has the support of a working majority in the commons.
The prime minister met EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday night to begin the new push for progress in the UK’s Brexit negotiations.
A Downing Street spokesman said: “Subsequent to that you can expect the [Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay] and the attorney general [Geoffrey Cox] to be having a detailed discussions with Michel Barnier in coming days.
“What we need to achieve is legally binding changes which satisfy parliament that we will not be stuck in the backstop indefinitely and you can expect for them to be wishing to have detailed discussions about that.”
The Independent understands that Mr Cox has now prepared draft proposals for a legally binding “codicil”, which would be attached to the existing withdrawal agreement, offering additional clarity as to the temporary nature of the “Irish backstop”.
The sticking point to Ms May winning full support from her party for her deal has always been the backstop, an arrangement to ensure the Irish border remains open after Brexit, but one that would see the UK potentially locked into an indefinite customs arrangement at the end of 2020 if no new trade deal is signed.
The backstop was sealed in the withdrawal agreement signed off by EU leaders in 2018 and which they have refused to reopen. The potential advantage of the codicil is that it could provide legally-binding additional words to the agreement without needing to reopen it.
In one sign that progress is not going as quickly as Number 10 would like, a speech from Mr Cox, in which he was expected to sell his new idea to MPs, will likely not take place this week.
But senior officials said the prime minister will be attending a two-day EU-League of Arab States summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh starting on Sunday.
Around 20 EU leaders are expected to take part, including German chancellor Angela Merkel and Irish premier Leo Varadkar, and Ms May is expected to hold a series of one-to-one meetings on the margins of the main summit.
But it is more about garnering support than reaching a deal, with a government official saying: “This isn’t a European Council meeting and this isn’t somewhere that European Council decisions are going to be made.”
It means that it is unlikely that the prime minister will be able to put a new deal to a “meaningful vote” of parliament next week and instead she will face another round of attempts by backbenchers to put forward alternative plans to be voted on 27 February.
If, as last time, there is a motion placed that would allow MPs to seize control of the parliamentary agenda and seek to delay Brexit, she could face resignations form the ministerial ranks if she stops frontbenchers backing it.
The prime minister’s aides hope that enough progress can be secured in the coming days to allow them to put a motion down on 27 February backing her strategy instead, in a bid to cement support behind it and avoid cross-party groups of MPs seizing control.
