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Anti-Brexit demonstrators wave flags outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, on Nov. 13, 2018.TOBY MELVILLE/Reuters

British Prime Minister Theresa May has reached a draft Brexit agreement with the European Union, but the proposed deal is already running into stiff opposition over the fate of the Irish border.

Ms. May has called a special cabinet meeting for Wednesday afternoon to review the proposed text, which runs more than 500 pages, and she plans to hold individual meetings with key ministers to sound them out on the terms. Government officials are also planning to brief business groups while EU officials in Brussels will update ambassadors from member countries.

The proposed deal, however, has already been fiercely attacked by hard-Brexit backers in Ms. May’s Conservative Party caucus and by her key allies in Parliament. Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party indicated it can’t support a deal that would treat Northern Ireland different from the rest of the United Kingdom.

Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson said he will vote against the deal. “It is utterly unacceptable to anybody who believes in democracy,” said Mr. Johnson, who backs a hard Brexit and has been intensely critical of Ms. May’s handling of the talks.

The draft deal comes at a critical moment in the Brexit negotiations with time running out for a final deal. Britain is set to leave the bloc in March and both sides have spent months negotiating the terms of Britain’s departure without success. Business leaders fear that if a deal isn’t reached, Britain could face tariff and non-tariff barriers from the EU, the country’s biggest trading partner.

The main sticking point in the talks has been the fate of the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The boundary has been invisible since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of sectarian violence known as The Troubles. The United Kingdom, EU and Ireland have said they don’t want to see the return of a hard border, but they’ve yet to figure out how to accomplish that once the United Kingdom is out of the EU’s single market, which allows for the free movement of goods, people and services among member states. The EU wants any withdrawal deal to include a backstop or guarantee that Northern Ireland will remain within the single market after Brexit but Ms. May has said she cannot accept a backstop that treats the province differently from the rest of the country.

Ms. May has proposed that the entire United Kingdom would remain within the EU’s customs union, which provides for the free movement of goods but not services, until both sides negotiated a permanent trade arrangement. The EU and Ireland have repeatedly said that was not good enough and want a further assurance that if a trade deal couldn’t be struck, Northern Ireland would remain in the single market.

Reports say the agreed text to be reviewed by cabinet on Wednesday includes Ms. May’s proposal for all of the United Kingdom to remain in the customs union but also has provisions that would keep Northern Ireland tied closer to the single market. It’s unclear if there is a time frame for how long that arrangement would last but reports indicated that there would be some kind of mechanism to allow the United Kingdom or EU to terminate the arrangement.

Even if she can win over her cabinet, Ms. May will still face huge obstacles getting the required approval from the British parliament for that kind of deal. Many Tory MPs oppose any prolonged continuation of Britain’s membership in the customs union, arguing that defeats the purpose of Brexit. And some of them voiced their concern on Tuesday, saying the draft deal won’t work. “It is a failure of the government’s negotiating position, it is a failure to deliver on Brexit, and it is potentially dividing up the United Kingdom,” Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg told reporters.

Ms. May’s Tories also don’t have a majority in the House of Commons and rely on 10 DUP MPs to stay in power. The DUP has yet to see the proposed text but the party has said that it won’t support a deal that treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the United Kingdom. The DUP draws most of its support from the Protestant community and the party fears that if Northern Ireland has a special arrangement with the EU and Ireland after Brexit, that could further the cause of reunification with the Catholic south. “We have to see the details of it, but it appears to be a U.K.-wide customs agreement but has deeper implications for Northern Ireland both on customs and single market,” DUP MP Nigel Dodds told reporters on Tuesday. “If that means that we’re taking the rules and laws set in Brussels, not in Westminster or Belfast, then that’s unacceptable.”

Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney indicated on Tuesday that despite the agreed text, a final deal hadn’t been reached. “Negotiations between the EU and U.K. on a withdrawal agreement are ongoing and have not concluded,” he said in a statement from Dublin. “Negotiators are still engaged and a number of issues are outstanding.”

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