May wins business backing

London, November 19 

British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday won support from big business for her draft Brexit deal ahead of “intense negotiations” with Brussels in the coming week.

May told the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the UK’ main business lobby group, that she was “determined to deliver” her Brexit deal as she prepares for Sunday’s European Council summit to sign Britain’s divorce papers.

“We now have an intense week of negotiations ahead of us,” she told some 1,000 business leaders at the CBI annual conference in London. “During that time I expect us to hammer out the full and final details of the framework that will underpin our future relationship. I am confident that we can strike a deal at the Council that I can take back to the House of Commons.”

The embattled premier, whose cabinet grudgingly approved her EU divorce draft last week, faces an uphill challenge to pass her deal through a sceptical Parliament. She admitted that the final phase “was always going to be the toughest”. The Brussels negotiations will finalise a parallel political declaration setting out a roadmap for post-Brexit negotiations on future EU-UK ties.

CBI chief Carolyn Fairbairn gave qualified support for May’s draft deal, saying that “it is not perfect, it is a compromise, but it is hard-won progress.” She earlier said the deal would move Britain “one step away from the nightmare precipice of no deal”. “It offers that transitional period as a step back from the cliff-edge.” — AFP

 ‘Fair & balanced’ deal

• The EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said the draft deal reached with London was “fair and balanced” as the bloc haggled with Britain over any extension to the envisaged transition period. 
• Barnier said they generally approved of the draft divorce deal reached last week and that a blank in the document on the end date for a possible extension of the status-quo transition period should be resolved for a summit.