Brexit: Theresa May will ask the EU to reopen Brexit deal

Theresa May is addressing MPs after telling her cabinet she will talk to the EU later about reopening talks on how the UK leaves the bloc on 29 March.

She is expected to have phone calls with key EU leaders throughout the day ahead of a series of Commons votes over the future direction of Brexit.

The EU has ruled out making changes to the legal text agreed with the UK PM.

But Mrs May has told her cabinet she will seek legally binding changes to the controversial Irish backstop.

Speaking in the Commons, the PM said the vote later would be a chance to “send a clear message” to EU on the backstop.

Senior Brexiteer rebels – who voted down her deal last month – have indicated they would be willing to back the rest of the UK-EU Brexit deal if she gets legal changes to the backstop.

The backstop is the insurance policy in Mrs May’s plan to prevent checks on good and people returning to the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, which some MPs fear could leave the UK tied to the EU’s rules indefinitely.

MPs put forward a string of amendments to modify the prime minister’s Brexit plan after it was voted down by an historic margin on 15 January.

Speaker of the House, John Bercow, has named seven amendments to be debated and voted on, including one from Tory MP Sir Graham Brady calling on “alternative arrangements” to the backstop, and one from Labour MP Yvette Cooper, which could delay the exit date by up to nine months.

Opening the debate, Mrs May said: “This House has left no-one in any doubt about what it does not want. Today we need to send an emphatic message about what we do want.”

A series of votes on the amendments is expected from 19:00 GMT.

Conservative MPs have been instructed by the government to vote Sir Graham’s amendment.

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has said the “Brady” amendment would give the PM a “strong mandate” to return to Brussels, adding: “If you compromise with us on this one issue, on the backstop, we would be able to a get an agreement – an agreement that is almost there.”

Former foreign secretary and leading Brexiteer Boris Johnson gave a boost to the plan, saying he “gladly” vote for the amendment, if Mrs May confirmed she would re-open negotiations with Brussels.

The Labour Party and a number of Remain-backing MPs are supporting Ms Cooper’s amendment that would create a bill enabling Article 50 – the mechanism by which the UK leaves the EU – to be delayed by up to nine months if the government does not have a plan agreed in Parliament by the end of February.

Labour said it was supporting the amendment because the bill it would create could “give MPs a temporary window to agree a deal that can bring the country together”.

But they would “aim to amend the Cooper bill to shorten the possible Article 50 extension”.

Mrs May dismissed the amendment in her opening remarks, saying it “does not rule out a no deal, it simply delays the point of decision”.

Source: BBC