May retaliates as Germany, France oppose her Brexit proposal

Bloomberg

British Prime Minister Theresa May struck back at the European Union for bluntly dismissing her Brexit plan with a speech designed to shore up her increasingly precarious position at home.
May told EU leaders that she wouldn’t back down and demanded they show “respect” to her country during talks. Rather than giving her a boost, a summit of EU leaders failed to mark any progress, particularly on the sticky issue of what do to about the Irish border. Instead, it led to humiliating newspaper headlines in Britain as May was told to come up with fresh ideas.
“The EU should be clear: I will not overturn the result of the referendum, nor will I break up my country,” May said in the short speech at Downing Street. “We need serious engagement on resolving the two big problems in the negotiations. We stand ready.”
With a little over six months to go before the UK is due to leave the EU, May was cut adrift at the two-day powwow in the Austrian city of Salzburg. Friday’s statement was designed to repair her reputation among the hard-line Brexit supporters in her own Conservative Party before she faces them at the organisation’s conference at the end of this month.
‘Abyss’
“May is playing for the domestic audience, which she continues to do in her speech,” said Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive of the European Policy Centre, a think tank in Brussels. “Towards November-December, the UK’s real concessions will need to come, which she can only get through the Commons if the country is looking down the abyss to no deal.”
The pound fell as much as 1.6 percent against the dollar, the most on a closing basis since June last year, even though May also revealed new details of a possible offer on the Irish border to resolve the impasse. EU officials dismissed the speech as posturing and vowed to persevere towards a deal. In interviews with newspapers and broadcasters around the continent, leaders of European countries continued to dismiss her proposals as unrealistic and damaging to companies in the region.
French European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau told France Info radio on Saturday that 27 members of bloc agreed in Salzburg that they wanted a Brexit deal that is in the EU’s interest. The German Foreign Office said May’s plan would allow British companies to access markets without complying with local regulations, Der Spiegel said. Even UK government ministers were skeptical, with some planning to call for a “Plan B” to the Chequers deal at a cabinet meeting on Monday, The Telegraph reports, citing unidentified sources. They may resign unless the prime minister offers alternative plans, it said.
The meeting in Austria was supposed to bolster May’s reputation. Instead, leaders told her to re-work her plans, and set her a deadline of next month to come back with something else. Stepping up the rhetoric, the prime minster hit out at EU leaders for flatly rejecting her plan for a future relationship with the bloc after Britain leaves in March next year. “At this late stage in the negotiations, it’s not acceptable to simply reject the other side’s proposals without a detailed explanation and counter proposals,” she said. Despite May’s tougher talk, she said she’d be willing to make a compromise on the Irish border, the UK’s only land frontier with the EU.
The prime minister will put forward new plans for a so-called backstop guarantee to ensure no police and customs checks are required, hinting she’s willing to allow Northern Ireland to develop its own rules that stay close to those of the EU.