When Theresa May goes to Brussels next week to bat for changes to the backstop, she’ll do so with a large crack in her bat—I say in The Sun this morning. The symbolic defeat that MPs inflicted on her Brexit plan on Thursday night has significantly weakened her negotiating position.
The EU doesn’t want to make significant changes to the backstop. When the Brady amendment passed the House of Commons, saying parliament would accept the deal if the backstop was replaced, the EU responded by saying that they didn’t think this parliament majority was ‘stable’. Thursday night’s vote helps them make that argument.
I understand that when the Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay dined in Brussels this week, Sabine Weyand—the EU’s deputy negotiator—spent her time telling him that a customs union was the only major change to the backstop available.
The EU think that Corbyn’s support for it means that a customs union could pass parliament.
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