EU leaders won’t budge on Brexit deal

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders offered a united chorus of “No” on Wednesday to Britain’s belated bid to negotiate changes to the Brexit divorce deal, with one official calling on British lawmakers to stop bickering and work out a cross-party approach.

In London, Prime Minister Theresa May acknowledged that her government hasn’t decided exactly how it will try to change the deal to address British lawmakers’ concerns about the Irish border.

All this while Britain is headed for the EU exit in less than two months, on March 29.

“We are, quite simply, running out of road,” Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said.

Buoyed by winning a vote in Parliament, May has vowed to secure “legally binding changes” to the withdrawal agreement.

British lawmakers voted Tuesday to send May back to Brussels seeking to replace an Irish border provision in the deal with “alternative arrangements,” ignoring EU warnings that the agreement can’t be altered.

But EU leaders saw the House of Commons session in a very different light.

Jean-Claude Juncker, chief of EU executive arm the European Commission, said Tuesday’s vote “has increased the risk of a disorderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom” from the EU.

“The withdrawal agreement will not be renegotiated,” he said.

Other EU governments backed that stance, leaving little room for May to realistically secure any changes to the Brexit deal.

Britain and the EU struck a divorce deal in November after a year and a half of tense negotiations.

But the agreement has run aground in Britain’s Parliament, which overwhelmingly rejected it on January. 15.