Brexit news: Theresa May secures ‘legally binding’ changes to EU deal after last-ditch Strasbourg visit

Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker are giving a press conference in Strasbourg.

Juncker says there is a deal on the table - and it has been on the table for 105 days now. He says he has no doubt that the deal can be signed in time but admits that the ratification on the UK side has been much harder than expected.

He says the EU has worked very hard and met May many times, including three times in one month. He says they have left no stone unturned to try to find a way forward.

In this spirit, he says he and May have agreed a joint legally binding instrument related to the Brexit deal. This instrument provides meaningful clarifications and legal guarantees on the nature of the backstop. It will be ratified by the EU council after a vote in the Commons.

Sometimes we get a second chance, he says. It is what we do with it that counts. 

But he warns there will be no changes to the deal now. It is this deal or nothing now. He says MPs are patriots and rightly so. But they also want a good relationship with the EU after Brexit.

He says he hopes the meaningful assurances will be meaningful enough for the meaningful vote.

May is up now.

She sets out all the benefits of the deal - control of borders, money, laws - and how it will set the UK on course for a good relationship with the EU in the future.

But there was a clear concern in parliament about the backstop, she said. It aims to protect the Good Friday Agreement - but it is not supposed to be permanent.

She says she will give more detail on the proposals tomorrow when she opens the meaningful vote debate. MPs asked for legally binding changes and she has secured them.

During the Q&A, Juncker says there will be no more negotiation on this. The backstop is an insurance policy, nothing more, nothing less.

Here's is a clip from the press conference, where Jean-Claude Juncker insists that the backstop is only an insurance policy - nothing more, nothing less.

Jeremy Corbyn responding to the PM's statement from Strasbourg, said: “The Prime Minister's negotiations have failed. This evening’s agreement with the European Commission does not contain anything approaching the changes Theresa May promised Parliament, and whipped her MPs to vote for.

“Since her Brexit deal was so overwhelmingly rejected, the Prime Minister has recklessly run down the clock, failed to effectively negotiate with the EU and refused to find common ground for a deal Parliament could support.

“That’s why MPs must reject this deal tomorrow.”

The government has also published its motion for tomorrow's meaningful vote. This is the wording that MPs will vote on tomorrow and also what they can tack their amendments onto, if they want to try to shift the process.

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said: “Theresa May’s Brexit plan changes nothing for Scotland. It is the same disastrous deal that ignores the people of Scotland’s overwhelming vote for remain and will cost jobs and hit living standards.

"The supposed concessions are a fig leaf for a problem that the UK created for itself. This fig leaf can’t disguise the fact that it was a bad deal in December, a bad deal in January, and is still a bad deal now.

“The chaotic attempt to placate the extreme Tory Brexiteers only serves to prolong the chaos and uncertainty. It is a blindfold Brexit which will take Scotland out of the Single Market – which is eight times the size of the UK  - and leave people at the mercy of the Tories as they continue to tear themselves apart.”

The other really *really* important group to win over is the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) who prop up Ms May's deal.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable said Ms May's meeting with Mr Juncker showed the Brexit negotiations were in disarray.

"Midnight flits to Strasbourg and desperate late night Commons statements underline the chaos into which Project Brexit has descended," he tweeted.

"Ministers cannot negotiate a better deal than being in the EU, because the UK is stronger inside as a full member."