Theresa May to offer freedom to stay in UK to 3.2m EU nationals in bid to break deadlock over Brexit expats as EU leaders beg UK not to leave

British-based EU nationals will be permitted to remain in the UK - in return for the UK expats getting the same deal - in a bid to break the deadlock over citizens' rights.

Theresa May's offer is part of a bid to break the deadlock over citizens' rights, and comes as her compatriots across the continent begged the UK not to leave.

The Prime Minister met with senior EU figures, including Donald Tusk, to offer certainty to the three million EU nationals living in the UK, an issue that she has identified as her first priority for early agreement.

Full details of the UK proposals will be published on Monday, but it had been hinted just before the election that Mrs May would offer EU nationals the right to stay.

The other 27 EU states will also hear a report from chief negotiator Michel Barnier on his talks with David Davis earlier this week.

The Brexit Secretary has already accepted a European timetable to put off talks on a future trade relationship until progress has been made on the terms of the divorce.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he hoped leaders of the 27 other nations would match her 'generous' proposals with similar offers to the one million British expats on the continent.

Downing Street declined to reveal details of the proposals on citizens' rights, but Mr Johnson said: 'What the Prime Minister will be able to do on Thursday is set out, as she has tried actually to do several times, her instinct to be generous about the 3.2 million EU citizens who are living here and hoping that there will be reciprocal, corresponding generosity towards the one million UK nationals in the rest of the EU.

'I think she's got a great offer to make and I hope it will go down well.'

However, despite repeated assertions from Mrs May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn that the Referendum result must be respected, high-profile figures such as Mr Tusk are hopeful of a dramatic u-turn.

The European Council President said: 'Some of my British friends have even asked me whether Brexit could be reversed, and whether I could imagine an outcome where the UK stays part of the European Union,' the Pole said.

'I told them that in fact the European Union was built on dreams that seemed impossible to achieve, so who knows?

'You may say I am a dreamer, but I am not the only one.'

And last night French President Emmanuel Macron said there needed to be a stricter clampdown on cheap foreign labour across Europe.

He said it was driving down wages and obliterating support for the EU, and said the Brexit vote was down to eastern European flocking to UK shores.

He said: 'The defenders of the European Union lost because the British lower middle classes said, "Stop!"'

Mark Rutte, leader of the Netherlands, admitted he 'hates' the idea of Britain not longer being part of the bloc, and hopes an agreement can remain in the Single Market.

In a two-day summit whose agenda is formally dominated by immigration, security and the economy, Mrs May will also brief her counterparts on the UK's commitment to a new £75 million plan designed to stem the flow of illegal migrants from Africa to Europe.

The three-year programme will offer humanitarian support, including food and water, to would-be migrants on the perilous transit routes from the Horn of Africa and western Africa through countries including Niger, Egypt and Libya.

And migrants who find themselves stranded and destitute along the routes will be offered assistance to return home.

While any assisted returns will be voluntary, it is thought that many individuals could take advantage of the scheme as a way of escaping the gruelling conditions of the transit routes, which expose them to the risk of death, violence, forced labour and exploitation at the hands of people-traffickers before they even reach Mediterranean Sea ports.

A record 4,576 people are thought to have died or been recorded missing while attempting the risky central Mediterranean Sea crossing during 2016. Some 181,000 people arrived in Italy via this route last year, with a greater number expected in 2017.

International Development Secretary Priti Patel said: 'This new UK support will provide desperately needed aid and protection to tens of thousands of the world's most vulnerable.'

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