European Council president Donald Tusk has said British MPs have shown a deep mistrust in Theresa May during the Brexit negotiations.
His comments comes as the prime minister insists her efforts to win fresh assurances on her Brexit deal is still on track after another bruising meeting with the EU leaders.
May said further talks would take place in the coming days on measures she hopes will persuade MPs to back the agreement in parliament.
But Tusk said he had no mandate to open new negotiations, although he would remain at Mays disposal.
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He did however, defend the prime minister efforts and said the EU had treated her with the greatest respect.
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Tusk said: We have treated prime minister May with the greatest respect, all of us.
And we really appreciate the efforts by the Prime Minister to ratify our common agreement.
My impression is that in fact we have treated Prime Minister May with much greater empathy and respect than some British MPs, for sure.
EU leaders acknowledged the need to bring down the temperature after appearing to rebuff her calls for assurances on the Northern Ireland backstop at a late-night press conference in Brussels.
Earlier the tensions erupted into public view when a visibly angry Mrs May was seen confronting European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker over remarks he had made during the press conference in the early hours of Friday.
The Prime Minister was apparently infuriated after he described the British negotiating position as nebulous and imprecise, and called on the government to spell out exactly what it wanted from the talks.
Mr Juncker defended what he said and that he had been able to convince her that his remarks had referred to the wider Brexit debate in the UK, joking: After having checked what I said yesterday night, she was kissing me.
However there was no disguising the disappointment on the British side that May came away from the two-day summit in the Belgium capital with only limited assurances regarding the backstop, which is intended ensure there is no return of a hard border on the island of Ireland.
The EU agreed they should try to ensure the backstop was never needed by swiftly working to reach a new trade agreement with the UK after it has left, and to find alternative arrangements as soon as possible if it was activated.
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However, at the end of a bruising week, in which Mrs May survived a vote of no confidence by Tory MPs there were hopes there would be some move towards providing a legal assurance that the UK could not trapped in the backstop indefinitely.
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It followed a direct appeal by Mrs May to the other 27 leaders to help her to get the deal through Parliament where she is facing opposition from all sides including many of her own MPs and the DUP who prop up her Government in Parliament.
In her end-of-summit press conference, she acknowledged that the Withdrawal Agreement could not be reopened, but insisted their discussions had shown there was scope for further clarification on the way the backstop would operate.
She said: The EU is clear, as I am, that if we are going to leave with a deal, this is it.
But my discussions with colleagues today have shown that further clarification and discussion following the councils conclusions is in fact possible.
There is work still to do and we will be holding talks in coming days about how to obtain the further assurances that the UK Parliament needs in order to be able to approve the deal.
On the EU side there was exasperation at the inability of MPs at Westminster to agree on a way forward amid concerns that further concessions on the backstop would still not be enough for Mrs May to get the deal through the Commons.
Mr Juncker said: Because I was following second by second the debate in the House of Commons and I noted there was a deep mistrust in the House when it comes to the European Union.
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That is not a good basis for future relations. We have to bring down the temperature.
These attacks coming from Westminster against Europe and the European Commission will not be responded to in the same way by Europe and the European Commission, although I would like to do it.
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