May meets Tory MPs ahead of Brexit vote

Prime Minister Theresa May said she was trying to get “movement” from the EU to help her win her Brexit vote next week as she met Conservative MPs to garner support for the withdrawal agreement.

MPs are due to start debating the agreement on Wednesday with the so-called “meaningful vote” scheduled for January 15. May's deal is hanging by a thread with a large number of Tories and the Democratic Unionist Party, on whose votes she relies, all set to reject it.

She was hosting the first of two drinks parties at Downing Street on Monday evening in her latest internal charm offensive to win dissenters over.

Speaking to reporters during a hospital visit in Liverpool, May said she would “set out is not just about the EU but also about what we can do domestically”.

“We will be setting out measures which will be specific to Northern Ireland; we will be setting out proposals for a greater role for Parliament as we move into the next stage of negotiations," she said.

"And we're continuing to work on further assurances, on further undertakings from the European Union in relation to the concern that's been expressed by parliamentarians."

However, European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas rebuffed May, saying "there is no negotiation because everything on the table has been established as approved, established, achieved".

"The priority now is to await events, monitor what is happening (with) the ratification procedure on the UK side and no, there will not be any meeting between the commission and our negotiator teams," he said.

Responding to an urgent question from Labour leader Jeremy Corby, Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay said he and the prime minister had been in contact with "a number of her EU counterparts" over Christmas.

"Securing the additional reassurance that Parliament needs remains our priority," he told MPs. "It's a good deal, it's the only deal, and I believe it is the right deal in offering certainty for this country."

Yet Corbyn was scathing of any notion that May would win any sort of concessions and was “trying to run down the clock in an attempt to blackmail this House, and the country, into supporting a botched deal”.

He also invoked a phrase used by Brexit ultras to describe Remainer concerns about the economic consequences of a no-deal departure, saying: (Theresa May] is not here because she is busy promoting 'Project Fear'. It’s all hot air.)

“[May] has refused to work with the majority in the last few months in a desperate attempt to spark life into what is actually a Frankenstein’s monster of a deal. We are now told, if we don’t support it, the government is prepared to push our whole economy off a cliff edge. And, to prove this, no-deal preparations are underway.”

“Even today, we see the farce of lorries being lined up to stage a fake traffic jam in Kent to pretend to the EU that the government is ready for a no deal.”

“The government is fooling nobody. These shambolic preparations are too little, too late. The reality is there is no majority in this House to support no deal. Why won’t the government face up to this truth and stop wasting our time and our money?”