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LONDON – Prime Minister Theresa May 24th, 2009 |
Downing Street said "negotiations are ongoing" and that the "Sunday Times" report has been proposed to the Irish-Northern Ireland border was "speculation."
However, U.K. and EU officials have said that this deal is getting closer and could be sealed this month.
May's deputy, David Lidington, said Friday that negotiators have been "very close" to an agreement. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney said "I think it is possible to get a deal in November."
UK, London and Brussels have not reached an agreement on their divorce and a smooth transition to a new relationship. The stalemate has heightened fears that the U.K. might leave a deal in place, leading to chaos at ports and economic turmoil.
An October EU summit that had been billed for the deadline for a breakthrough ended with the talks still deadlocked.
The key obstacle is the Irish border, which will be the U.K.'s only land frontier with the EU after Brexit. Northern Ireland's hard-won peace process.
But the two sides have not agreed on how to do that. Britain rejected the EU's proposal – to keep Northern Ireland in a union with the bloc – because it would impose new customs and regulatory checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.
According to the Sunday Times, a proposed solution would keep all the U.K. in a customs union – but with an exit clause to be mollified pro-Brexit British lawmakers who worry about the U.K. will be bound to the EU forever.
Cabinet – which is split between supporters of a clean break with the EU and those who want to keep close to the bloc.
May has already lost two top ministers, Boris Johnson and David Davis, over her Brexit blueprint. Others could follow in a bid to make her change race. And pro-Brexit Conservative lawmakers have openly mulled up with a no-confidence vote and a leadership contest party.
So far, the prime minister has stood on the ground and her opponents have blinked.
With the clock ticking, the opponents of the United States are stepping up their efforts to secure a new referendum on whether to accept any deal between Britain and the bloc.
Britain voted in 2016 to leave the EU, but some argues the public should get a second chance to decide the shape of the U.K.'s future relations with the bloc is clear.
More than 70 British business leaders signed a letter published Sunday urging a second vote, arguing that the conditions proposed by the government for associating with the EU after Brexit are "not nearly as good as the current deal we have inside the EU."
Signatories included James Daunt, chief executive of the Waterstones book store chain, form Sainsbury's supermarket CEO Justin King and Martha Lane-Fox, founder of Lastminute.com.
Meanwhile, one of the main funders of the successful pro-Brexit side in the 2016 referendum is facing a criminal investigation.
The National Crime Agency is investigating tycoon insurance Arron Banks after electoral officials alleged that 8 million pounds ($ 10.4 million) he has been forced to a pro-Brexit group might have come from outside the U.K., in violation of election laws.
A British parliamentary committee is also investigating Banks' role in the referendum and its meetings with Russian officials.
Banks denied wrongdoing Sunday, accusing anti-Brexit politicians and journalists of pursuing a "witch-hunt" against him.
"The money came from a U.K.-registered company… Generated from businesses in the U.K.," Banks told the BBC.
"There was no money of any kind," he said.
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