LONDON – British Prime Minister Theresa May will visit Germany’s Angela Merkel Tuesday as she works to salvage her Brexit deal, a day after delaying a parliamentary vote on it to avoid a crushing defeat.
May will first go to The Hague for talks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte before meeting Merkel in Berlin, as she struggles to unite British lawmakers behind her faltering plan.
The embattled leader is facing a rebellion in her own party and from parliamentary allies that threatens to sink both the agreement and her leadership.
“I will now do everything I possibly can to secure further assurances,” May told mutinous MPs Monday on her planned dash to Europe ahead of an EU summit later this week.
“I will discuss with them the clear concerns that this house has expressed,” she said.
But European Council president Donald Tusk warned the bloc would not reopen the agreement secured in November after months of negotiations, with Brexit looming on March 29.
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“We will not renegotiate the deal, including the backstop,” he tweeted, referring to the contested clause in the deal relating to Northern Ireland.
“But we are ready to discuss how to facilitate UK ratification.”
Tusk said the other 27 EU leaders would discuss Brexit at a special meeting on Thursday, at the start of a pre-planned summit in Brussels which May will attend.
