EU leaders assure British PM of new deal over Brexit backstop by 2021

European Union leaders gave Prime Minister Theresa May assurances on Thursday that they would seek to agree a new deal with Britain by 2021 so that the contentious Irish backstop is never triggered.

"It is not open for renegotiation," the 27 national leaders said in a joint statement of the tentative Brexit deal they had agreed with May in late November but which the British leader has since taken back to Brussels for more assurances she says she needs to get it passed by her divided parliament.