UK leader in frantic final push to win Brexit deal backing

Associated Press

LONDON

British Prime Minister Theresa May made a frantic last push Monday to swing lawmakers’ support behind her seemingly doomed Brexit deal, warning that its defeat risked scuttling the U.K.’s departure from the European Union and “betraying the vote of the British people.”

May claimed to have gotten reassurances with “legal force” on key issues from the EU, and said history books would judge Parliament harshly if lawmakers did not back Britain’s orderly exit from the EU when they vote on the agreement today.

“Over these next 24 hours, give this deal a second look,” May implored skeptical lawmakers in the House of Commons.

“With just 74 days to go until [Brexit day] the 29th of March, the consequences of voting against this deal tomorrow are becoming ever clearer,” she said.

May said rejecting her deal would lead either to a reversal of Brexit – overturning voters’ decision in a 2016 referendum – or to Britain leaving the bloc without a deal, a course that would damage the country’s economy, security and unity.

But the British leader had few concrete measures up her sleeve, and opposition to her deal remains dauntingly strong. A defeat today would throw Brexit plans into disarray just weeks before the U.K. is due to withdraw from the bloc.

Britain and the EU reached a hard-won divorce deal in November, a milestone that should have set the U.K. on the road to an orderly exit.

But the compromise deal has been rejected by both sides of Britain’s EU divide.