(Apr 11): Brexit is on course to be delayed until the end of October under a plan agreed by European Union leaders to remove the threat of a chaotic break-up later this week.
The blueprint hashed out during six hours of talks in Brussels allows the UK to stay in the bloc until Oct 31 to provide more time for the British government to get the divorce terms ratified in Parliament. A review of progress will be held in June.
“EU27 has agreed an extension,” of the negotiating period, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Twitter. “I will now meet PM @theresa_may for the UK government’s agreement.”
Joseph Muscat, prime minister of Malta, confirmed the new deadline of Oct. 31 with a review in June to allow EU leaders “to take stock of the situation.”
The decision is a compromise. May asked for a short delay until the end of June, but Tusk proposed a delay of as long as a year. At the summit on Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron took a hard line, pushing for a shorter extension. The pound was unchanged on the news, as investors had priced in an extension.
Britain was due to leave the bloc of 28 member countries on March 29 but May failed three times to get the divorce deal she negotiated with the EU approved in Parliament. May has already been forced to ask the EU for one delay and reluctantly returned to Brussels on Wednesday to ask for a second short extension to the negotiating period.
She argued that she needed a short amount of extra time to complete the process of cross-party compromise talks with her main opponents, Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist Labour Party. If the two sides can get a deal, the Withdrawal Agreement will be likely to pass a vote in Parliament.
But May’s request has been rebuffed, making it now highly likely that the UK will be required to take part in European Parliament elections next month. That’s something the premier and many of her own Conservative Party colleagues have said would be unacceptable three years after Britain voted to leave the EU.
