Ministers will resume efforts later to secure legally-binding changes to Theresa May’s Brexit deal that might get MPs’ backing in a week’s time.
Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay and Attorney General Geoffrey Cox will meet EU officials in Brussels in search of guarantees over the backstop plan to avoid border checks in Ireland.Cox has dismissed reports he has given up on securing a firm end date to ensure the UK is not stuck.
MPs will vote on the deal by 12 March. The UK is currently scheduled to leave the European Union on 29 March. If MPs reject the withdrawal agreement for a second time, they will have the opportunity to vote on whether to go ahead in just over three weeks’ time without any kind of negotiated deal.If they decide against, they will then have a vote on whether to extend negotiations and push the date of departure back by several months.
Separately, Scottish and Welsh politicians are joining forces in an attempt to force the prime minister to change her position on Brexit. For the first time since devolution 20 years ago, they will debate the same motion, at the same time.
Leading Brexiteers are hoping Cox will be able to change his legal advice to satisfy them that the backstop – a controversial plan which will see the UK aligned with EU customs rules until the two sides’ future relationship is agreed or alternative arrangements worked out – will not endure indefinitely.
They have set a number of tests for the government’s chief law officer and other ministers ahead of next week’s votes.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that signals from the EU were “reasonably positive” but there was “still a lot of work to do”.
“Time is very short, but what I would say compared to where we were a month ago the situation has been transformed,” he said. “We need substantive changes that would allow the attorney general to change his advice to the government that says that at the moment, theoretically, we could be trapped in the backstop indefinitely.
“And I think the EU understands that we need that change.”Michael Tomlinson, one of an eight-strong group of Conservative MPs who will scrutinize what is brought back from Brussels, said only significant changes to the backstop would do.”We support the prime minister in seeking treaty-level changes,” he said after the group’s first meeting on Monday.A “proper analysis” of any new text would be needed to allow them to “form a judgment”, he added.
BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said the group of Eurosceptics, who are also lawyers, will “pore over whatever Cox gets from Brussels”, adding: “They will ultimately make a political call. The crucial bit for government is for the attorney general to feel he has enough to go on to change his legal opinion on the backstop.”
Cox took to Twitter on Monday after newspaper reports suggested he had turned his attention away from the concrete “freedom clause” demanded by many MPs to assurances that the backstop would fall away if talks on a future relationship break down.
He said while some of the reporting was accurate, “much more of it isn’t”. He added: “Complex and detailed negotiations cannot be conducted in public.”Meanwhile, an identical motion will be debated simultaneously by the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly on Tuesday evening – with co-ordinated votes.
The vote will underline opposition to May’s deal, demand a delay to Brexit and call for “no deal” to be ruled out.Scottish Brexit Secretary Mike Russell said the “historic step” was being taken “to send a strong message to the UK government that it must stop pursuing such a disastrous course of action”.
The UK government has said that the deal is a good one for Scotland and Wales.Last week, Jeremy Corbyn said Labour will back another EU referendum, after his alternative Brexit plan was again defeated in the Commons.But the Labour leader said he will also continue to push for “other available options” including a general election.
