May pushes for Brexit deal with new timetable

British Prime Minister Theresa May rounded up her ministers on Friday to plot a renewed bid to convince MPs to back the EU divorce deal, after securing a delay to Brexit.

The premier faces daunting odds to persuade British lawmakers to support a plan they have already overwhelmingly rejected twice, by a new April 12 deadline agreed with European Union leaders.

If May succeeds, Britain -- which was staring at a cliff-edge deadline of March 29 for leaving the EU -- will depart on May 22 under the terms of a withdrawal agreement struck with Brussels last year.

But if MPs defeat the accord again next week, as appears likely, then Britain must outline a new plan or face a no-deal Brexit as early as April 12, unless London decides to request another extension.

A further extension would require Britain to take part in European Parliament elections in May, despite having voted to leave the bloc three years ago. "Until April 12, anything is possible," EU Council President Donald Tusk told reporters on Friday at the close of the EU summit in Brussels.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the bloc's leaders would need another summit with May to discuss how to proceed if MPs reject the agreement again. That prospect increased on Friday after Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, which props up May's government in parliament, accused the prime minister of "failure" at the EU summit.

"The government has been far too willing to capitulate," Nigel Dodds, the DUP's leader in the British parliament, said in a statement, adding that "nothing has changed as far as the withdrawal agreement is concerned".