Full speech: May updates MPs about Brexit talks amid dinner-leak row

Theresa May today (October 23) updated MPs on the progress of Brexit talks amid a row concerning an alleged leak about a dinner with EU leaders in Brussels last week. The British Prime Minister said she relayed what she set out in her Florence speech to the European Council. She also said that she had a “degree of confidence” negotiations would reach a point in December where they could move forward. Addressing criticism that talks were taking too long saying they were “complicated and deeply technical” and that her negotiators were going through a possible Brexit agreement “line by line”. The Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn accused the PM of being “too weak” to bring together the “warring factions in her own cabinet”. He said Britain “was stuck in an impasse” during the “most crucial negotiations in our country’s modern history”. A correspondent for Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Sunday (October published an account of the EU chief executive’s reactions after a dinner meeting with May on Britain’s EU withdrawal. It painted a picture of the British PM “begging for help” from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. The paper’s unnamed source said that the PM looked like “someone who can’t sleep a wink”. Downing Street declined to comment on the reports emphasizing that both sides were of the opinion that the meeting was “constructive and friendly”. May’s ex-adviser Nick Timothy accused Juncker’s chief of staff, German lawyer Martin Selmayr, of being the source. In a tweet, Selmayr denied the accusation that he Juncker have “no interest in weakening the PM”.