May eyes final Brexit battle in June

British Prime Minister Theresa May will launch another push next month to approve Britain's exit from the European Union before the summer break, setting a new deadline for her Brexit plan and a potential timetable for her own departure, Reuters reported.

"It is imperative we do so then if the UK is to leave the EU before the summer parliamentary recess," a Downing Street spokesman said after May met opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as part of talks to secure his party's support for the bill.

"We will therefore be bringing forward the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in the week beginning the June 3," he said, citing the same week as US President Donald Trump's state visit to Britain.

For the past six weeks, ministers and their Labour counterparts have been discussing how parliament could accept the agreement May struck with the EU last year, Agence France-Presse reported.

Progress has been painfully slow, and there are growing calls in May's Conservative party to abandon the process.

But her ministers discussed at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday "the compromises which the government was prepared to consider" and agreed to keep talking, May's spokesman said.

They also said it was "imperative" that any exit plan be approved by parliament before MPs go on their summer holiday, which normally begins at the end of July.

"What she (May) is working to do is to get a deal passed as soon as possible," the spokesman said.

She turned to Labour last month in the hope of finding a way through, but the party is insisting on a close trading relationship with the EU that many Conservative MPs reject.

A Labour party spokesperson said Corbyn had raised "concerns about the prime minister's ability to deliver on any compromise agreement".

(China Daily 05/16/2019 page12)