EU may scrap the Halloween deadline, says Gordon Brown
EUROPEAN leaders are now prepared to scrap the October 31 Brexit deadline, according to Gordon Brown.
The former prime minister yesterday claimed that French president Emmanuel Macron is no longer opposed to extending the deadline for the UK leaving the EU.
He said: ‘I believe that next week the European Union will withdraw the October 31 deadline and remove the excuse that Boris Johnson has and the claim that he’s making that it’s the EU that is being inflexible.’
Mr Brown added that he hopes an attempt in the House of Commons to pass a law preventing a No Deal Brexit is successful.
Speaking as he launched a new pro-Union think-tank in Edinburgh, the former Labour leader said: ‘It was Macron that introduced this October 31 deadline. He persuaded the rest of the European Council to impose it and Britain agreed to it.
‘My information is that Macron no longer holds to that deadline. It was really introduced for his campaign in the European elections to make him sound tough. And none of the other European Commissioners will hold to that October 31 deadline. ‘The Government has two arguments that they want to get across – that it’s a sovereign people against a non- sovereign Parliament, and it’s Britain against Europe. ‘Pull the rug from under that by saying it’s not Europe that’s being inflexible, it’s up to Britain now – the deadline can be removed. ‘If that happened next week it would help us win a vote in the Commons and put the pressure back on the Government.’ Last night, a spokesman for the European Commission appeared to support Mr Brown’s comments, telling The Daily Telegraph: ‘Another extension is obviously a possibility and depending on the purpose the EU could be forthcoming.’ Former Brexit secretary David Davis responded to the announcement, saying it shows the EU are beginning to relent from their hardline stance.
He said: ‘I think it would indicate that yet again, as we thought they would, they are blinking.
‘From the beginning I’ve said it won’t be the three years that matter but the last three weeks. It will be in that period that they begin to make concessions.
‘It is an attempt to undermine, but also a sign that as I’ve said time and again they are far more afraid of a No Deal than we are. They are desperate to avoid it.’
Mr Davis added that now a ‘far more constructive approach’ from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mr Macron suggests ‘ we just gave in to them’ under Theresa May’s leadership.
Last month, Ursula von der Leyen said she would ‘ support a further extension if good reasons are provided’ shortly before she became European Commission president.
Speaking in Edinburgh at the think-tank launch, Mr Brown also delivered a withering verdict on Mr Johnson’s performance so far in Downing Street.
He said: ‘Only four weeks into his premiership, Boris Johnson is not only shredding our constitution but tearing the country apart – with no plan to bring people together again and no unifying national project to ever do so.
‘ We now have Scotland- first nationalism, England-first, Northern Ireland-first and Wales-first nationalisms – all challenging the very idea of one United Kingdom and creating divisions.’
A UK government spokesman said: ‘ The United Kingdom is the most successful political and economic union in history and the Prime Minister has been clear that as we leave the EU he will strengthen this, setting the whole country on a course for a brighter, better future.’
‘They are blinking’