Katy Balls Katy Balls

A nebulous press conference: Theresa May insists progress made on backstop

After a nightmare EU Council summit, Theresa May attempted to put on a brave face in her summit press conference. The Prime Minister told hacks that despite the fact the EU had refused to agree to her request for a 12 month limit to the backstop, progress had been made. As for that heated exchange between May and Jean Claude Juncker in which she appeared to call the European Commission president out for describing her as nebulous, that was merely the type of ‘robust’ conversation good friends can have.

While there is reason to believe Juncker was being disingenuous in calling May ‘nebulous’ over her requests (the UK side insist the EU side know what it wants), this press conference did manage to fall into the nebulous category. May did her very best to insist that things were moving when it came to progress on the backstop.

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