May bloodied, but not beaten

Bloodied but not yet beaten, Prime Minister Theresa May comes to Brussels for the second time in three days yesterday, battling to save her Brexit deal and her career. The British leader, who survived a confidence vote staged by her own party’s MPs late on Wednesday, now needs to turn a narrow victory on home turf into an unlikely away win. May’s 27 counterparts will join her in Brussels for a European Union summit less than three weeks after a November 25 meeting at which they approved the Brexit divorce papers.

The accord was hailed as the end to a 17-month negotiation, and leaders dared hope they had saved Britain from crashing out of the union on March 29 with no ongoing trade arrangements. But when May brought the hardfought compromise back to Britain she ran into renewed opposition from hardline Brexiteers on her own backbenches and balked at putting it to parliament. Now she wants Europe to sweeten the offer with “reassurances” that the so-called “backstop” -- measures to prevent the return of a hard border with Ireland -- will not last indefinitely.

Negotiators said the leaders would listen to May and see what they can offer her in terms of a statement, but insist the 585-page withdrawal agreement itself can not be renegotiated. “The margin is really tight, it will be an exercise in presentation,” one senior European diplomat confided Wednesday.  They will, however, hear May out, setting aside time on Thursday during a summit they had hoped would deal with migration, budgets and eurozone reform to talk about Brexit once again. “The discussions in Britain... do not make the situation any easier, but we should nevertheless do everything we can to avoid a hard Brexit,” Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said.

Austria holds the rotating EU presidency and Kurz arrived in Brussels ahead of the summit to talk with host Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, about the agenda. “It is clear that the withdrawal agreement will not be opened up and amended but there are, of course, other ways of moving towards one another that are in the interests of both sides,” Kurz said.