LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union was hanging by a thread on Tuesday after the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, said that last-minute pledges from the bloc did not fundamentally alter the legal status of the agreement that pro-Brexit lawmakers find so objectionable. As Mr. Cox’s opinion reverberated through British politics, Mrs. May suffered another damaging blow when legal analysts for the influential European Research Group, a cohort of Conservative, pro-Brexit lawmakers, said they would “not recommend accepting the government’s motion today.”That made the defeat of Mrs. May’s plan all but certain, analysts said, with the only remaining question being its severity. Taken together, the body blows to the government threw Britain into a new period of political uncertainty, raising the possibility of Parliament trying to take control of the process in a further diminishing of Mrs. May’s shaky authority. Mr. Cox said the concessions from the bloc did “reduce the risk” of Britain being trapped indefinitely in the so-called Irish backstop — an insurance policy against a hard border in Ireland that is a central issue for opponents of Mrs. May’s deal.

Source: New York Times March 12, 2019 10:19 UTC