Prime Minister aims to rescue Brexit plan; EU says ball’s in U.K.’s court

BRUSSELS — British Prime Minister Theresa May launched a rescue mission for her ailing Brexit deal Friday, after the European Union rebuffed her request to sweeten the divorce agreement so she can win over hostile lawmakers at home.

EU leaders meeting in Brussels showed little appetite to resolve May’s Brexit impasse for her, saying the U.K. Parliament must make up its mind. The choice was either back the Brexit agreement or send Britain tumbling out of the bloc in March without a deal and into unknown economic chaos.

“There is one accord, the only one possible,” French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters at the end of a two-day summit. He said it was “the British parliament’s time” to decide whether to accept or reject it.

The Brexit gridlock has left Britain’s future looking like a high-stakes gamble with a dizzyingly wide range of possible outcomes. There could be an orderly or a disorderly Brexit. May’s Conservative government could fall and an early election be held. Britain could make a last-minute request to the EU to give it more time and not leave the bloc on March 29. Some people are even pressing for the U.K. to hold a second referendum on Britain’s EU membership.

So many possibilities, so little time.

May came to the EU summit seeking legally binding changes to the agreement, which is opposed by a majority of British lawmakers.

But the 27 other EU leaders offered only reassurances. They said they would seek to move swiftly on forging a new trade deal after Britain leaves the bloc, and promised that a legally binding insurance policy to keep the Irish border open would only be used temporarily.

They rejected British pressure to put a fixed end date on the border guarantee, and refused to re-negotiate the Brexit agreement, a 585-page legal text settling issues including the size of Britain’s divorce bill and the future rights of Europeans living in Britain and Britons living in the EU. It also includes a document laying out the two sides’ hopes for future relations, which isn’t legally binding.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker accused Britain of failing to give detailed proposals on Brexit, saying it was “up to the British government to tell us exactly what they want.”