British PM Theresa May to Unveil New Brexit Strategy
Britain will crash out of the European Union on 29 March 2019.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May unveils her Brexit "Plan B" to parliament on Monday, 21 January, after MPs shredded her EU divorce deal, deepening the political gridlock 10 weeks from departure day.
London and Brussels have spent the best part of two years working on the divorce deal but MPs in parliament's lower House of Commons comprehensively rejected it on earlier in January.
EU leaders have signalled they could alter the agreement if May dropped some of her negotiating "red lines" but British media on Monday reported that she would instead attempt to negotiate some changes to the existing agreement.
The reports were met with scepticism in Europe.
Asked if he would change the Brexit deal, Slovakia's Miroslav Lajcak said: "Why? So you want the EU to be a bigger loser than the UK? Is this what you really want? "This is a fair deal that 27 members strongly support so I would really not touch," he said.
After surviving a Commons confidence vote on 16 January, May last week reached out to opposition parties to seek a compromise solution but the talks appear to have fallen through.
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the main opposition Labour Party stayed away, saying that a "no-deal" departure must be ruled out first – something May says is impossible.
After May sets out her plans for the way ahead, lawmakers are set to table a series of amendments, to be voted upon on 29 January.
At least two groups of MPs are planning to table amendments to enable backbenchers to delay Brexit and prevent Britain leaving the EU with no agreement.
One of the proposals would enable MPs to debate and vote on Brexit issues, giving them far greater influence over government strategy.
May's Downing Street office has called them "extremely concerning".
"You've got a Leave population and a Remain parliament," International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, one of the senior Brexiteers in May's cabinet, said on 20 January.
"Parliament has not got the right to hijack the Brexit process... and in fact steal the result from the people," he told BBC television.
One of the most problematic areas of the divorce deal is the so-called backstop on the Irish border – a legal guarantee that the frontier would remain free-flowing if Britain and the EU cannot agree a long-term free trade pact.
Changes in the backstop could help win over Conservative eurosceptics, and the party's Democratic Unionist allies that May counts upon for a majority in parliament.
Graham Brady, who chairs the committee of backbench Conservative MPs, said he thought May could get her Brexit deal past Conservative rebels if the Irish backstop "can be sorted out".
"So much of the vote against was from people who simply cannot support a potentially permanent backstop, if that can be sorted out then I think we might get that withdrawal agreement through," he told BBC radio.
He said it was in Ireland's interests to help Britain leave the EU with a deal, saying they would be far more hurt by a no-deal Brexit that Britain as most of their trade comes through the UK.
But Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said Sunday that he and Prime Minister Leo Varadkar were in no mood to support alterations to the withdrawal agreement (WA) or the backstop.
"We remain united and focused on protecting Ireland," he said.
"That includes continued support for the EU/UK agreed WA in full, including the backstop as negotiated."
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