Theresa May faces heavy defeat in parliament as Brexit crisis grips Britain

Just 19 days before the United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on March 29, May is scrambling - so far unsuccessfully - to secure last-minute changes to an EU exit treaty before parliament votes on Tuesday on whether to approve the deal.

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal faces a heavy defeat in parliament on Tuesday because she has so far secured no major changes from the European Union, the leaders of two major eurosceptic factions in parliament said on Sunday.

Just 19 days before the United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on March 29, May is scrambling – so far unsuccessfully – to secure last-minute changes to an EU exit treaty before parliament votes on Tuesday on whether to approve the deal.

If she fails, lawmakers are expected to force May to seek a delay to Brexit which some fear could see the 2016 decision to leave the bloc reversed. Others argue that without a delay Britain faces an economic shock if it leaves without a deal.

Nigel Dodds, the deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) which props up May’s minority government, and Steve Baker, a leading figure in the large eurosceptic faction of her Conservative party, warned “the political situation is grim”.

“An unchanged withdrawal agreement will be defeated firmly by a sizeable proportion of Conservatives and the DUP if it is again presented to the Commons,” they wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.