British Prime Minister Theresa May unveiled her Brexit Plan B on Monday — and it looks a lot like Plan A.
May launched a mission to resuscitate her rejected European Union divorce deal, setting out plans to get it approved by Parliament after securing changes from the EU to a contentious Irish border measure.
May's opponents expressed incredulity: British lawmakers last week dealt the deal a resounding defeat, and EU leaders insist they won't renegotiate it.
Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party accused May of being in "deep denial" about her doomed deal.
"This really does feel a bit like 'Groundhog Day,'" he said, referring to the 1993 film starring Bill Murray, in which a weatherman is fated to live out the same day over and over again.
Outlining what she plans to do after her EU divorce deal was rejected by Parliament last week, May said that she had heeded lawmakers' concerns over an insurance policy known as the "backstop" that is intended to guarantee there are no customs checks along the border between EU member Ireland and the U.K.'s Northern Ireland after Brexit.
May told the House of Commons that she would be "talking further this week to colleagues ... to consider how we might meet our obligations to the people of Northern Ireland and Ireland in a way that can command the greatest possible support in the House.
"And I will then take the conclusions of those discussions back to the EU."
The bloc insists that it won't renegotiate the withdrawal agreement.
"She is wasting time calling for a revision or clarification over the backstop," saidGerman politician Udo Bullmann, head of the socialist group in the European Parliament.
While May stuck doggedly to her deal, she also acknowledged that control over Brexit wasn't entirely in her hands. She noted that lawmakers will be able to amend her plan when it comes to a vote in the House of Commons on Jan. 29, exactly two months before Britain is due to leave the EU.
Groups of "soft Brexit"-backing lawmakers — who want to keep close economic ties to the bloc — are planning to use amendments to try to rule out a "no-deal" Brexit and make May ease her insistence that leaving the EU means quitting its single market and customs union.
Britain and the EU sealed a divorce deal in November after months of tense negotiations. But the agreement has been rejected by both sides of Britain's divide over Europe. Brexit-backing lawmakers say it will leave the U.K. tethered to the bloc's rules and unable to forge an independent trade policy. Pro-Europeans argue it is inferior to the frictionless economic relationship Britain currently enjoys as an EU member.
After her deal was thrown out last week by a crushing 432-202 vote in Parliament, May said she would consult with lawmakers from all parties to find a new way forward.
But Corbyn called the cross-party meetings a "stunt," and other opposition leaders said the prime minister didn't seem to be listening.
On Monday, May rejected calls from pro-EU lawmakers to delay Britain's departure from the bloc or to hold a second referendum on whether to leave.
In a nod to opposition parties' concerns, she promised to consult lawmakers, trade unionists, business groups and civil society organizations "to try to find the broadest possible consensus" on future ties between Britain and the EU, and said the government wouldn't water down protections for the environment and workers' rights after Brexit.
May also said the government had decided to waive a 65 pound ($84) fee for EU citizens in Britain who want to stay permanently after Brexit.