May makes last-ditch bid to save Brexit deal

Bloomberg

Prime Minister Theresa May is making a last-ditch attempt to save her Brexit deal and prevent Parliament seizing control of the UK’s divorce from the European Union.
The British government sees May’s meeting on Wednesday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels as a crucial chance to get legally binding changes to the so-called Irish border backstop, which has proved the biggest obstacle to getting a deal. But EU officials are playing down the prospects of an imminent breakthrough, saying the meeting is just a staging post in the resumption of talks.
“There isn’t enough movement for me to be able to expect this to be a discussion with a concrete outcome,” Juncker said at a news conference in Stuttgart, Germany. In a later panel discussion, he expressed his frustration at the state of talks. “I’m losing my time with this Brexit,” he said.
If talks this week go according to plan, May’s team hopes to put a revised Brexit deal to a binding vote in Parliament early next week — and before February 27, UK officials said. That’s the date when members of Parliament opposed to Britain leaving the bloc without an agreement would have the chance to take the process out of May’s hands.

Compromise Dropped
One plan May had been urged to push in Brussels is to use technology to avoid the need for a backstop policy for the Irish border. The so-called backstop effectively ties Britain into the EU’s customs regime indefinitely, in what pro-Brexit campaigners see as a betrayal of the 2016 referendum to leave the bloc.
But the government has now concluded that the plan for new technology, known as the “Malthouse Compromise,” is not a serious contender for resolving the current impasse. But it could be revived as part of future negotiations over the long-term trade deal with the EU, according to government officials who asked not to be named.