European Union leaders finally sealed a Brexit deal on Sunday, saying the package agreed with Prime Minister Theresa May was the best Britain will get in a warning to the British parliament not to reject it.
“Those who think that, by rejecting the deal, they would get a better deal, will be disappointed,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters after the 27 other EU leaders formally endorsed a treaty setting terms for British withdrawal in March and an outline of a future EU-UK trade pact.
Asked whether there was any chance Brussels would reopen the pact if an alliance of pro- and anti-Brexit forces votes it down in the British parliament, Juncker said “this is the best deal possible”, although summit chair Donald Tusk sounded more guarded, saying he did not want to consider hypotheticals.
May used a post-summit news conference to make a sales pitch for her plan, telling television viewers at home that it was the “only possible deal”, offering control of UK borders and budgets while maintaining close alignment with EU regulations that was good for business and the security of Britain and Europe.
“In any negotiation, you do not get everything you want. I think the British people understand that,” said May, who arrived after the endorsement to voice hopes for continued close ties.
Parliament’s vote could open the door to a “brighter future” or condemn the country to more division, she said. “I will make the case for this deal with all my heart,” she added, declining to answer whether she would resign if parliament rejects it.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the bloc’s veteran guiding force, echoed that unwillingness to speculate on what she called a “historic day” that was both “tragic and sad”.
“There is no Plan B,” said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. “If anyone thinks in the United Kingdom that by voting No something better would come out of it, they are wrong.”
The only Plan B was preparing a possible no-deal scenario in which Britain crashes out on March 29 into legal limbo, roiling Europe’s economy, a senior EU official said.
In May’s exchanges at the summit, there was no discussion of what may happen if parliament rejects the deal in a vote likely to take place just before the next EU summit on Dec. 13-14.
NO CHAMPAGNE
Amid praise for Michel Barnier’s team of negotiators for bringing home a deal after 18 months of gruelling talks, Juncker said it was “no time for champagne”, as one of Europe’s great powers quits after a 2016 referendum. The harder work of forging new relations now lies ahead, he added.
The EU leaders took barely half an hour to rubber-stamp the 585-page withdrawal treaty, aimed at an orderly exit in March to be followed by two to three years of a status-quo transition period. The outline of a future trading and security partnership was just 26 pages long. May’s critics say it leaves Britain tied to EU regulations that it will no longer have a say in setting.
Her foreign minister, Jeremy Hunt, said that the Brexit deal was a “staging post” towards Britain getting everything it wanted from leaving the EU, but that the arithmetic for getting the deal approved was “challenging”.
European Council President Tusk said the bloc was determined to have as close as possible a partnership with Britain, which has long been sceptical about EU integration: “We will remain friends until the end of days. And one day longer,” he said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Britain’s Brexit vote showed Europe needed reform. He stressed that Paris would hold Britain to tight EU regulations, in return for giving it easy trade access. He also foreshadowed coming, fraught, negotiations by demanding access to British fishing grounds after Brexit.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite spoke of several scenarios if parliament blocks the package: that Britons would hold a second referendum; hold a new election to replace May or return to Brussels to try and renegotiate the package.
IRISH QUESTION
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which props up May’s minority government, said it would try to block the deal because it binds London to many EU rules and the DUP fears it may weaken the province’s ties to Britain — a result of efforts to avoid a risk of a “hard border” with EU member Ireland.
Wrangling over how to keep open troubled Northern Ireland’s land border with the EU dogged much of the Brexit talks and DUP leader Arlene Foster said she would “review” the agreement to back May’s Conservative government if the Brexit divorce is passed in parliament.
Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn repeated that his Labour party, which says it could get a better deal, will vote against.
Britain’s 300-year-old naval base in Gibraltar on Spain’s southern coast, had also threatened to derail plans. But Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he was satisfied with guarantees of a say in the future of “The Rock”, saying on Sunday that Spain wanted to claim a share of sovereignty.
READ MORE ABOUT THE CASE
At the Parliament
Agreeing a Brexit deal with the European Union may have been the easy part for Prime Minister Theresa May. Getting it through a divided parliament at home could be an altogether tougher battle.
For now, the odds look stacked against her with criticism of the deal approved in Brussels on Sunday from all sides, including the Northern Irish party propping up her minority government.
But May still has a few tricks up her sleeve.
She has already set loose her party enforcers known as “whips” who will use their powers of persuasion to ensure she has as much backing as possible in the make-or-break vote, likely in the next few weeks.
May and the whips will play on lawmakers’ fears for their careers if they oppose the withdrawal agreement and are then blamed by voters for the economic chaos that companies and banks say will follow if Britain leaves the bloc without a deal.
She is likely to focus much of her attention on winning over lawmakers who occupy the middle ground in her Conservative Party - as well as in the Labour opposition, whose leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has urged them to vote against the deal.
Her chances of turning hardliners in either the pro-EU or pro-Brexit camp are slim but she could still try by offering sweeteners such as government posts, backing for lawmakers’ favourite causes or help for their voting districts.
One pro-Brexit lawmaker, John Hayes, was awarded a knighthood on Friday in what critics called “an act of desperation” by May to win over opponents of the deal.
“What is the thing that can get her to get her a majority? Is it something that helps the hardliners, or is it something for the more moderate point of view?” asked Labour lawmaker Caroline Flint.
“There is a whole number of people in the middle of that and the challenge for her is what’s she going to choose.”
‘CHOICE IS CLEAR’
Britain is scheduled to pull out of the European Union on March 29, almost three years after Britons narrowly voted to leave in a referendum.
May and her team still hope to get the deal approved by Brussels through the 650-seat lower house of parliament, despite a hostile reception on Thursday when the prime minister failed to win over sceptics who called it a surrender.
Brexit campaigners say the deal leaves Britain as little more than a vassal state, unable to break free of Brussels. EU supporters say the deal offers the worst of all worlds, making Britain a rule taker with no say in future decisions.
Aides say she was ready for the backlash - if perhaps not the ferocity of it - believing that when the parliamentary vote comes, her main message will focus minds.
That message, they say, is clear: vote in favour or risk opening the door to more uncertainty - Britain leaving without a deal, Brexit never happening, or the collapse of the government and the prospect of Corbyn becoming the next prime minister.
“When you strip away the detail, the choice before us is clear,” May said after securing the agreement of her top ministers at a brutal cabinet meeting that triggered the resignations of two of her team.
“This deal which delivers on the vote of the referendum, which brings back control of our money, laws and borders; ends free movement; protects jobs, security and our union; or leave with no deal; or no Brexit at all.”
‘HIGH STAKES’
May is taking her argument to the doorstep as part of a charm offensive she hopes will convince the public she has delivered on what her team considers to be the main message of the referendum - tackling immigration.
“In any negotiation you do not get everything you want ... I think the British people understand that,” she said on Sunday,
And for some lawmakers, that message is one that will resonate with their voters.
Flint said paramount in her mind was whether a deal would protect jobs in her northern English constituency, offer a way to ease the concerns of her voters about immigration, and above all, avoid leaving the EU without an agreement.
“My red line is I don’t want us to crash out without a deal,” she told Reuters. “I just think it’s really high stakes stuff.”
She is not alone. Other Labour lawmakers have signalled they could also back May’s agreement if it prevented a so-called no deal Brexit.
“When we leave the EU, it must be with a deal because crashing out with a no deal would be a catastrophe,” said Gareth Snell, another Labour lawmaker with a northern English constituency that voted to leave the EU and where the ceramics industry relies on trade with parts of the bloc.
“I want a deal that enables free trade and protects the manufacturing businesses in Stoke-on-Trent from tariffs or barriers,” said Snell.
DIFFICULT ARITHMETIC
But parliamentary arithmetic remains difficult and May’s success or failure will rest on whether there are enough lawmakers in the middle ground to force the deal through.
Her plan will face opposition from both eurosceptics and europhiles within her party’s 314 lawmakers, and the 313 lawmakers from opposition parties. The 10 Democratic Unionist Party Northern Irish lawmakers propping up the government said at the weekend that they will vote against.
May needs to win a simple majority in parliament, which would be 320 votes if all active lawmakers turn out and vote. Former whips, who have long studied parliamentary arithmetic, say the prime minister may end up needing only 305 votes if illnesses and abstentions are accounted for.
For now, many lawmakers are waiting to see how it all plays out, especially those in Labour who could make the difference.
“The only way of justifying voting with the government is that they want Brexit to happen,” one Conservative lawmaker said. “But why would they want co-ownership of a controversial policy that may not succeed?”
(Published by Reuters, November 26, 2018)