Sterling falls as Downing Street admits Brexit talks are ‘deadlocked’ ahead of meaningful vote

Downing Street has admitted that Brexit talks with the EU have reached a stalemate before Theresa May puts her deal to MPs in another meaningful vote tomorrow, sending sterling to a three-week low.

The Prime Minister spent her Sunday night in talks with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker after a last-ditch visit to Brussels by the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, appears to have ended in failure.

Cox was in Brussels on a mission to win changes to the Irish backstop, the policy designed to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland by keeping the UK in a temporary customs union with the EU. It has earned the opposition of many Brexiters who fear Britain will be locked indefinitely into a customs union with the EU.

Read more: Tory MPs urge May to pull Brexit vote

Cox had been seeking a firm time limit to the backstop, as well as a unilateral exit mechanism to allow the UK to leave on its own terms rather than with the approval of the EU.

Sterling fell from a morning peak of $1.301 against the dollar to $1.296 at the time of writing.

Today marks the last day of talks between the two sides before the meaningful vote tomorrow, in which May will attempt to overturn the 230-vote defeat she suffered in January.

Read more: Brexiters dismiss reports they could swing behind PM's deal if she resigns

Yesterday another row erupted in the Tory party after foreign secretary warned Brexiters there was a risk that we “end up losing Brexit if we get the votes wrong in the next couple of weeks”.

In his rebuttal to Hunt, Baker said: “The people who would stop Brexit should know just this: what you do, you’ll have to do in public now. And everyone will know just what you have done. Stopping Brexit will be on you, not Brexiteers. Don’t kid yourselves otherwise.”