Brexit: UK given until end of week to come up with new plan

EU officials have said they are ready to work through the weekend if the UK comes forward with an “acceptable” plan to resolve the impasse over the Northern Ireland backstop, the BBC reported.

Theresa May is facing a crunch Commons vote on Tuesday when she takes her Brexit deal back to MPs following its overwhelming rejection in January by a majority of 230.

The Prime Minister has staked her hopes of getting through the “meaningful vote” this time on securing concessions from the EU on the backstop - which has proved the main stumbling block to an agreement.

Tory Brexiteers have been demanding legally-binding assurances the UK cannot be tied indefinitely to EU rules through the backstop, intended to prevent the return of a hard border on the island of Ireland.

However, talks in Brussels on Tuesday between the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier and Attorney General Geoffrey Cox and Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay broke up without agreement.

Both sides acknowledged that the meeting had been “difficult”, with reports Mr Barnier complained that Mr Cox had brought forward “a legal solution to a political problem”.

French Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau has warned again that the Withdrawal Agreement could not be reopened, and that it represented “best possible solution”.

“We cannot reopen this negotiation on the Withdrawal Agreement because it is balanced,” she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

“We don’t like the backstop, we don’t want to have to implement it, and if we have to, we don’t want to stay in the backstop.

“We all agree that it should be temporary, and that it’s a last resort solution.”