British Prime Minister Theresa May | Aris Oikonomou/AFP via Getty Images Theresa May: Ireland border only outstanding Brexit withdrawal issue The prime minister said she told EU leaders that MPs would reject the Brexit deal without ‘clarity about our future relationship alongside it.’

LONDON — The U.K and the EU are now close to an agreement on the Brexit withdrawal agreement, Theresa May said, with only the status of the Irish border remaining as a major dividing line.

Updating MPs on last week's European Council summit on Monday, the prime minister insisted that "with the exception of the protocol relating to Northern Ireland we now have agreement or are close to doing so.”

The EU has long said that not only the Irish border issue, but the question of governance — how disputes over the terms of the withdrawal treaty are resolved — is also an area of disagreement.

May will meet her Cabinet at her country residence Chequers on Friday ahead of the publication of a white paper which will set out the U.K.'s asks for a future relationship with the EU in more detail than ever before.

Negotiators intend the withdrawal agreement to be accompanied by a political declaration giving an outline of what the future relationship will look like, but substantive talks on trade and other aspects of the relationship cannot be negotiated until after the U.K. leaves the EU on March 29, 2019.

Speaking in the House of Commons, May said she had told her fellow EU leaders that MPs would reject the withdrawal agreement unless there was “clarity about our future relationship alongside it.”