Brexit dea l: What happens next?

A European Union summit this week broke up with little progress towards a Brexit deal, just months before Britain is due to leave the bloc on March 29, 2019.

EU leaders agreed to keep talking but refused to confirm a special meeting in November to seal the agreement, pushing any possible deal back to a December summit. Before that, British Prime Minister Theresa May must win a parliamentary vote on her government’s budget on November 1, a test of her ability to get the final Brexit deal approved. Here is an outline of what could happen next:

Budget day

May’s Conservative government depends on its majority in the House of Commons on the 10 MPs from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP has threatened to vote against the budget if May agrees a Brexit deal with the EU that threatens the status of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. Media reports suggest some hardline eurosceptic Conservative MPs, who believe May has already conceded too much to Brussels, could also use the budget vote as a show of strength.