Brexit deal draft ready

London - May to present it to cabinet today

The European Union and Britain have agreed on a draft text of a Brexit withdrawal agreement and Prime Minister Theresa May will present it to her senior ministers on Wednesday.
While officials choreograph the first withdrawal of a sovereign state from the EU, it remains unclear whether May can get any deal approved by the British parliament.
"Cabinet will meet at 2pm tomorrow to consider the draft agreement the negotiating teams have reached in Brussels, and to decide on next steps," a spokesman at May's Downing Street office said.
"Cabinet ministers have been invited to read documentation ahead of that meeting," the spokesman said, after British media were leaked details of the breakthrough.
Sterling, which has see-sawed since reaching $1.50 just before results of the 2016 referendum vote for Britain to leave the EU, surged to $1.3036.
Brexit will pitch the world's fifth largest economy into the unknown and many fear it will help to divide the West as it grapples with both the unconventional presidency of Donald Trump and growing assertiveness from Russia and China. Others says it will offer opportunities for Britain to develop new trading relationships beyond Europe.
The EU and the United Kingdom need an agreement to keep trade flowing between the world's biggest trading bloc and the United Kingdom, home to the biggest international financial centre.
But May has struggled to untangle nearly 46 years of EU membership without damaging trade or upsetting the lawmakers who will ultimately decide the fate of the divorce deal.
With less than five months until Britain leaves the EU, the so-called Northern Irish backstop was the main outstanding issue that held up the deal.
The backstop is an insurance policy to avoid a return to controls on the border between the British province of Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland if a future trading relationship is not agreed in time.