DESPERATION

Theresa May to Beg EU for Help: Can We Change the Brexit Deal?

But the EU has already ruled out making changes.

Theresa May has confirmed that she will ask to the EU to reopen negotiations on her Brexit deal, despite the EU already ruling out changes to the plan. The so-called withdrawal agreement was agreed between the prime minister and the EU last year, but was overwhelmingly rejected by British lawmakers earlier this month in the biggest parliamentary defeat in U.K. history. Without any changes to the deal, the United Kingdom is likely to crash out of the EU with no deal which forecasters have warned could shrink the British economy by over nine percent. The EU has repeatedly said that it will make no changes to the withdrawal agreement they agreed with May, but the prime minister told her cabinet Tuesday that she will ask them to do exactly that. Rebels in her Conservative party rejected the deal largely because of part of it which says the U.K. and the EU could enter a customs union together to prevent a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Changes that May asks for are likely to include an alternative to that arrangement, known as the backstop.

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Nico Hines