In a bid to build pressure on both sides of the Channel, the PM was suspected last night of holding back a solution until just before the showdown Commons vote next Tuesday.
Attorney General Geoffrey Cox and Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay arrive in Brussels this afternoon, where they are expected to table revised text to the unpopular Irish backstop for the first time.
But No10 signalled the key changes were unlikely to be agreed this week as “there definitely remains more work to be done”.
Officials now believe a trip to Brussels on Sunday night by Theresa May is now likely, to tie down the final deal with EU boss Jean-Clause Juncker before she unveils it to MPs on Monday afternoon. But that breakneck timetable risks infuriating the European Research Group of hardline Tory Brexiteers.
It warned No10 its members must have a minimum of 48 hours to study Mr Cox’s new backstop.
Veteran Tory Eurosceptic MP Sir Bill Cash, who leads an ERG panel of eight lawyers set up to study the plan, told The Sun: “It would be in the national interest for Parliament to have 48 hours to scrutinise what Geoffrey Cox proposes before the debate
starts on Tuesday. We all need to make a proper analysis. To do otherwise would be seriously unwise.”
They can’t take us by surprise by coming with a text on the last day.
ERG deputy chair Mark Francois added: “Because Geoffrey Cox is negotiating this deal, and will therefore be marking his own homework when he advises Parliament, it is critically important that MPs are given good time to look at the detail. Any attempt to bounce the Commons is likely to backfire spectacularly.”
But a Government source told The Sun: “I wouldn’t expect to see anything until Monday. You don’t want to give the ERG a weekend of trouble making”.
EU officials also suspect Mrs May is planning a last minute pressure trap, and have insisted Mr Cox puts his demands in writing by midweek “at the latest”. One EU diplomat said: “People need to be comfortable. They can’t take us by surprise by coming with a text on the last day”.
British and EU negotiators are exploring new legal assurances surrounding the arbitration system which will allow either side to terminate the backstop.
An EU source said the two sides were “looking along the lines of good faith and the mechanisms already there in the Withdrawal Agreement”. But they stressed talks were focussed on “clarifying things, not fundamentally changing them”, falling short of hard Brexiteer demands. Asked about the possibility of a time limit to or unilateral exit from the backstop, they replied: “That’s not going to happen.”
Mr Cox reacted in fury to a claim yesterday that he has abandoned Eurosceptics’ two key backstop asks, for an end date or a unilateral exit mechanism. In a furious tweet, he branded the newspaper report “misunderstood fag ends dressed up as facts”.
The package will also include a pledge to set up a joint task force to study a Brexiteer plan for alternative arrangements such as technology to replace the Irish backstop.
Any provisional agreement between the Commission and the UK and would still be subject to the endorsement of EU leaders later this month.
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