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Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May leaves from Downing Street in London on Tuesday. (PTI)[/caption]
Strasbourg (France), March 12 (IANS): European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and British Prime Minister Theresa May said here that they agreed to "clarifications and guarantees" regarding the Brexit provision to prevent the return of a hard border between the Irish Republic and the UK province of Northern Ireland.
May travelled to Strasbourg in pursuit of some movement from the EU on the Irish backstop that would persuade euroskeptics in Parliament to vote for the Conservative Prime Minister's Brexit deal, which went down to defeat in January by a record 230 votes, Efe news reported on Monday.
"The Prime Minister and I have agreed on a joint legally binding instrument relating to the Withdrawal Agreement. This instrument provides meaningful clarifications and legal guarantees on the nature of the backstop," Juncker said during a joint press conference with May on Monday.
"The backstop is an insurance policy, nothing more, nothing less. The intention is for it not to be used, like in every insurance policy," he said.
UK lawmakers "were clear that legal changes were needed to the backstop. Today we have secured legal changes," May said the day before Parliament was due to vote again on her Brexit proposal.
"Now is the time to come together to back this improved Brexit deal and deliver on the instruction of the British people," she said.
EU leaders had shown no inclination to re-negotiate any aspect of the Brexit accord, insisting on the need to avoid a hard border in Ireland, something that many people fear would undermine the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of strife in Northern Ireland between pro-British unionists and Irish nationalists.
But British politicians expressed concerns that the agreement could permanently trap the United Kingdom in a customs union with the EU.
Juncker was emphatic on Monday that the EU was done talking.
"There will be no third chance. There will be no further interpretations of the interpretations, no further assurances of the re-assurances if the meaningful vote tomorrow fails," he said.
The late night news conference in Strasbourg followed an announcement in London by UK Cabinet Office minister David Lidington that the government would be presenting two new documents to the House of Commons.
He described the texts as a "legally binding instrument on the Withdrawal Agreement and protocol on Northern Ireland and a joint statement to supplement the political declaration."
The legal binder affirms that the EU could not trap the UK in the backstop indefinitely, Lidington said.
"On top of this, the joint instrument also reflects the United Kingdom's and the European Union's commitment to work to replace the backstop with alternative arrangements by December 2020," he said.
If the vote on Tuesday fails, May has pledged to give the House of Commons an opportunity to vote on two additional resolutions: one on a no-deal Brexit; the other on delaying Brexit beyond the March 29 date enshrined in law.
British Prime Minister Theresa May claimed to have secured the breakthrough required to get her Brexit withdrawal agreement through a crunch vote in Parliament on Tuesday evening.
However, it was received with caution by British MPs unsure of the legal ramifications, leaving Britain's exit from the European Union (EU) still precariously poised ahead of the March 29 Brexit deadline.
In a last-minute dash to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Monday night, May emerged alongside European Commission President Jean Claude-Juncker to declare that the UK and EU have agreed "legally binding" changes to the controversial Irish backstop clause to ensure any such arrangement would not be permanent.
The move is aimed at addressing the concerns of hard-Brexiteers in her own Conservative Party and the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which provides her government with its majority in the House of Commons.
"MPs were clear that legal changes were needed to the backstop. Today we have secured legal changes. Now is the time to come together to back this improved Brexit deal," May said at a joint press conference with Juncker.
The EU said it had made significant concessions as two additional documents were agreed to back up the withdrawal agreement struck in December last year a joint legally binding instrument which the UK could use to start a "formal dispute" against the EU if it tried to keep the UK tied into the backstop indefinitely and a joint statement committing both sides to find an alternative to the backstop by the end of the Brexit transition period of December 2020.
"In politics, sometimes you get a second chance. There will be no third chance it is this deal or Brexit might not happen at all," Juncker said, issuing a stark warning to Britain's MPs over the importance of the parliamentary vote in the UK on Tuesday.
Ireland's Indian-origin Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, also stressed that the new agreements were an "unambiguous statement" of both sides' "good faith and intentions" even if they did not "undermine" the principle of the backstop or how it might come into force.
The Opposition Labour Party, meanwhile, has declared that the British PM has secured nothing new.
The legal arguments around the new changes will be the focal point ahead of the vote scheduled for around 1900 GMT, with UK Attorney General Geoffrey Cox set to update his advice on the deal and whether it will stand up to legal scrutiny and be enough to convince sceptical MPs to vote in favour of May's deal.
All eyes will then be on another Commons vote, expected by Thursday, in favour of delaying the March 29 deadline.
The March-end deadline had kicked in when the UK triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty following a referendum in favour of Brexit by nearly 52 per cent to 48 per cent or 17.4 million votes to leave the EU as opposed to 16.1 million to remain in the 28-member economic bloc in June 2016.