UK says ‘legally binding changes’ to Brexit deal agreed with EU

TIL Desk/World/London/ Prime Minister Theresa May said Monday she has secured “legally binding” guarantees from the EU designed to get the Brexit deal through the British parliament and avert a chaotic withdrawal. She announced the move after a late evening dash to Strasbourg to hammer out the changes with top European officials, as the clock ticked down to Britain’s scheduled divorce from the bloc on March 29.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker warned that the stakes were increasingly high, ahead of a vote by British lawmakers on the deal on Tuesday. “The choice is clear: it is this deal, or Brexit may not happen at all. Let’s bring the UK’s withdrawal to an orderly end,” the former Luxembourg premier told reporters, sitting next to May at a late-night press conference in the French city.

“There will be no third chance.”  The three-part package of changes effectively aims to resolve a key sticking point for British MPs over the so-called backstop plan to keep open the border between EU member Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland. “Today we have secured legal changes,” May told reporters after the talks with Juncker and the European Union’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier.