Theresa May to travel to Paris and Berlin for critical Brexit talks

Theresa May will head to Berlin and Paris on Tuesday in an eleventh hour bid to convince EU leaders to grant another delay to Brexit.

The Prime Minister will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron just a day before a crunch Brexit summit in Brussels.

The EU will use that summit to decide whether to give an extension to the Article 50 negotiating process, but Macron in particular has made it clear the UK needs to set out a concrete proposal for why it wants a further delay.

If no extension is granted, the UK could leave the EU without a deal on Friday.

In a video message released on Sunday, May said “compromise on both sides” of the Brexit debate was needed in order to break the deadlock.

However, on Monday morning Downing Street were unable to say when talks with the Labour leadership over deal which could unite both parties would resume.

The Prime Minster’s deputy official spokesperson said: “There has been further contact over the weekend, our intention is to engage further with the opposition today and given the need for urgency we hope that will lead to further formal discussions.

She added: “We hope that will lead to further formal face-to-face discussions.”

Speaking to the BBC, Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer claimed “the ball is in the government’s court” when it comes to restarting the talks, and the Prime Minister has yet to show she is willing to change the political declaration aspect of the deal which sets out the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

He said: “At the moment we haven’t seen a change of position from the government. If there is a change of position we need to consider that and we will consider it.

"We will have to see what happens today but I think what I can say is both sides, both us and the government have approached this in a spirit of trying to find a way forward. We haven’t found that yet, we will continue to do so.”