Britain's May confronts EU leaders amid Brexit crisis

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May faces a Brexit showdown with frustrated EU leaders Wednesday with talks on agreeing an orderly break-up at an impasse.

This week's summit in Brussels was billed as a "moment of truth" for negotiations on Britain's exit from the bloc -- but it seems the truth is that the two sides just cannot agree.

"Tomorrow I am going to ask Prime Minister May whether she has concrete proposals on how to break the impasse," EU president Donald Tusk declared.

But May, hemmed in by opponents in her own party and even in her own cabinet, has no such proposals.

"The prime minister set out her position and where she thinks the negotiations are yesterday," a Number 10 spokesman said.

Even the choreography of Wednesday's summit opening emphasises British isolation. May will brief her 27 colleagues, then they will leave to discuss Brexit over dinner without her.

Tusk has made it clear that if May and EU negotiator Michel Barnier do not offer signs of concrete progress towards a draft deal he will not call a November summit to sign it.

Instead, the whole circus could either be pushed back to December or -- formerly seen as taboo -- the EU could use the November weekend to meet on preparations for a "no-deal" Brexit.

Previously, both sides had agreed that Britain crashing out of the Union on March 29 next year with neither a divorce agreement nor a road-map to future ties would be an economic and diplomatic disaster.

But, after Britain's refusal to accept an indefinite legal "backstop" to prevent the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, doubts are mounting.

"I think we are quite close to a no-deal," warned Konrad Szymanski, the Polish minister for European Affairs after a pre-summit meeting with his European counterparts in Luxembourg.

Back in Brussels, a stern Tusk said: "We need something really creative to protect our values, to protect our single market. For this we need a new method of thinking."
"We are going to take this time calmly, seriously to reach this comprehensive agreement in the coming weeks."