Theresa May says 95% of Brexit deal is done

Theresa May has said she is prepared to “explore every possible option” to break the deadlock in Brexit talks.

She told MPs 95% of the terms of exit were agreed but the Irish border was still a “considerable sticking point”.

While willing to consider extending the UK’s transition period beyond 2020, she said this was “undesirable” and would have to end “well before” May 2022.

Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn said the Tories were “terminally incompetent and hamstrung by their own divisions”.

And the European Parliament Brexit’s co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt has said the withdrawal agreement was 90% complete, rather than the figure of 95% given by Mrs May.

The Irish border remained the biggest stumbling block, he told a committee in Strasbourg, but he was confident a deal could be agreed before the EU summit in December.

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, speaking to the BBC in New York, said speculation about the Conservative leadership was “unhelpful” and some of the language that had been used about Mrs May was “dreadful”.