Andrea Leadsom warned Brussels the British Government will not stand down from their negotiating position and will continue to work to see the backstop removed from the Brexit withdrawal agreement. The Leader of the House of Commons urged the European Union to understand Theresa May will not give in to claims the insurance policy devised to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland must be included into a divorce deal. Speaking to the Today programme, Ms Leadsom said: "It is quite clear, and I hope anyone in the EU negotiating team listening to the Today programme, will be absolutely clear that the core requirement of Parliament that we resolve the issue of the backstop remains the Government’s negotiating position."
Ms Leadsom dismissed suggestion the latest defeat the Government suffered was a failure, claiming the vote on Mrs May's Brexit motion was "more of a hiccup than the disaster that is being reported."
She however suggested eurocrats could exploit the results of the vote in the Commons to claim Britain has no clear Brexit strategy.
The Tory MP continued: "The vote allows the EU to continue with this pretence that they don’t know what we want. And they do know what we want.
"It was quite clear from the note two weeks ago, what Parliament wants to see is the issue around the backstop resolved in a legally-binding way.
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