The U.K. and the European Union plowed ahead Monday with plans to have their divorce deal signed, sealed and delivered within days as British Prime Minister Theresa May waited to see whether rebel lawmakers opposed to the agreement had the numbers to challenge her leadership.
The draft agreement reached last week triggered an avalanche of criticism in Britain and left May fighting to keep her job even as British and EU negotiators raced to firm up a final deal before a weekend summit where EU leaders hope to rubber-stamp it.
Anti Brexit campaigners demonstrate at Westminster in London, Monday, Nov. 19, 2018. The EU nations and Britain are still negotiating the outline text of a draft Brexit deal, setting out their future relationship which will have to be ratified by both the British and the European Parliaments.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)The 585-page, legally binding withdrawal agreement is as good as complete, but Britain and the EU still need to flesh out a far less detailed seven-page declaration on their future relations.
May said “an intense week of negotiations” lay ahead to finalize the framework.
The deal has infuriated pro-Brexit lawmakers in May’s Conservative Party. The Brexiteers want a clean break with the bloc and argue that the close trade ties called for in the agreement May’s government agreed would leave Britain a vassal state, bound to EU rules it has no say in making.