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Britain and the EU are on the verge of signing a Brexit deal that could be concluded in the next 24 to 48 hours, Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday.
While officials choreograph the largest divorce contract in EU history, it is unclear whether May can get an agreement in parliament, where opponents have claimed it betrays Brexit by signing the Kingdom. To submit it to the EU.
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"We're not there yet," David Lidington, Cabinet Minister, told BBC radio. "We are almost at hand now."
When asked if he said it was possible for an agreement to be reached in the next 24 or 48 hours, he said, "Still possible but not at all precise, I think that sums it up pretty well. Cautious optimism. "
Sterling jumped half a percent to 1.2917 USD following Lidington's comments.
The EU wants to reach an agreement on a draft agreement by Wednesday, if a summit is to be approved this month, although few in Brussels seemed to have much hope that it would be possible for the summit to be agreed. a breakthrough can be made this week.
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Brussels diplomatic sources said the bloc was trying to persuade May to seal an agreement this week and to ratify it later this month, fearing that any delay would increase the chances of rejection by its ministers or parliament.
Leave the approval until the next EU summit scheduled for December 13 and 14 would mean that UK lawmakers would only decide on an agreement after January 7, the day they return from vacation.
"It gives opponents of the agreement a lot of time to set up a campaign to reject it. That's why everyone on our side is tackling so hard for November, "said a source.
The EU and the UK need an agreement to maintain trade between the world's largest trading bloc and the fifth largest economy.
But May has struggled to unravel nearly 46 years of membership without harming trade or upset lawmakers who ultimately decide the fate of any agreement it can get.
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"Temporary and not indefinite"
Less than five months from the date on which Britain will leave the European Union, the main outstanding issue is Northern Ireland.
This is an insurance policy to avoid a return to border controls between the British province of Northern Ireland and the EU member Ireland if no future business relationship is agreed in time .
Asked that the UK could be trapped against his will, Lidington said: "The Prime Minister has repeatedly said that if the bulletproof is to be used – we do not want it to happen. be used – … to be something that would be temporary and not indefinite. "
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However, the subtleties of any deal, defined at nightly sessions in the Berlaymont modernist building of the European Commission in Brussels, should not change the growing opposition to May.
By seeking to leave the EU while maintaining the closest possible ties, May's compromise plan has upset the Brexiteers, the pro-Europeans, the Scottish nationalists, the Northern Ireland party that supports her government and some of her own ministers.
"No one is fooled by this theater. Delay after late staged, "said former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. "An agreement will be reached and this will imply a surrender by the United Kingdom."
Johnson, a prominent Brexit activist who resigned from May's government in July because of her strategy, said the agreement would make Britain an EU colony.
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Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said he was confident about the progress of the negotiations, but did not give further details.
Lidington, who voted to stay in the EU in the 2016 referendum, declined to say whether the proposed deal would make the UK more or less rich, saying the citizens had decided to leave the EU. 39; EU.
Asked whether Britain should seriously prepare for a Brexit "without agreement" if no deal was reached Wednesday, as the newspapers reported, he said: "I do not I will not impose days on specific actions. "
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