Brexit ‘secret’ slips out in bar

British MPs will face a stark choice between Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal or a long extension to the March 29 deadline for leaving the EU, the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator was overheard saying in a Brussels bar.

Unless May can get a Brexit deal approved by the British parliament, then she will have to decide whether to delay Brexit or thrust the world’s fifth largest economy into chaos by leaving without a deal.

May has repeatedly said Britain will leave on schedule, with or without a deal, as she tries to get the EU to reopen the divorce agreement she reached in November.

But her chief Brexit negotiator, Olly Robbins, was overheard by an ITV correspondent at a hotel bar in Brussels saying MPs would have to choose whether to accept a reworked Brexit deal or a potentially significant delay.

“Got to make them believe that the week beginning end of March … Extension is possible but if they don’t vote for the deal then the extension is a long one,” ITV quoted Robbins as saying during a private conversation on Monday.

Robbins made clear that he felt the fear of a long extension to Article 50, the process of leaving the EU, might focus MPs’ minds, ITV said.

It is unclear why Robbins, an experienced civil servant, would make such comments in a bar. His remarks will deepen the concerns of Brexit-supporting MPs that May could delay leaving the bloc. –