EU delays Brexit date until Hallowe’en
EU27 leaders extend exit until October 31 with review in June after PM ‘begs’ for help
BREXIT is set to be delayed until Hallowe’en after EU leaders imposed a six-month Article 50 extension on Theresa May last night.
On another bruising night in Brussels, the Prime Minister’s request for a shorter delay was rejected in favour of an October 31 exit date.
The delay means Britain will have to take part in next month’s European elections, prompting fury among Eurosceptic MPS.
The Prime Minister has previously said that taking part in the European Parliament elections three years after Britain voted to leave the EU would amount to “failure”.
One Cabinet minister told The Daily
Telegraph that the Prime Minister needed to quit “sooner rather than later” but Mrs May vowed to carry on until Brexit had been achieved.
MPS increasingly believe Mrs May will have to step down either after the local elections on May 2, where the Tories are expecting to do badly, or after the European elections on May 23.
Last month Mrs May told Parliament that “as Prime Minister I am not prepared to delay Brexit any further than June 30”.
The fact that she has now had to accept a delay four months beyond that will only add to the pressure on her to announce the timetable for her departure.
The majority of EU leaders had wanted a nine-month “flextension” until the end of December at the start of yesterday’s European Council summit in Brussels.
Shortly before midnight last night they reached a compromise to satisfy President Emmanuel Macron of France, who had wanted Britain to leave on May 7, with or without a deal. In a further concession to Mr Macron, the EU leaders agreed to meet again on June 21 to review Britain’s behaviour within the EU after it has elected a new set of MEPS.
Mr Macron is concerned that Britain could disrupt the EU in its final months as a member state by blocking budget decisions and acting in bad faith.
It was not clear last night whether the October date is dependent on the result of the June meeting. In any event, the UK would leave the EU on June 1 if it fails to hold European elections next month.
Mrs May, who had to leave the European Council meeting while Britain’s future was decided, was criticised for failing to provide “sufficient clarity” in an hour-long interrogation by the other 27 leaders.
But it will be the issue of her own future that will dominate in Westminster today when she returns to Parliament to make a statement about last night’s events.
A meeting of the executive of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers yesterday was dominated by discussions about Mrs May’s leadership.
The MPS discussed moving against Mrs May after the local elections to allow her successor a fresh start and ensure they were not tainted by bad results.
One said: “There is a feeling that if those elections are going to be bad – let them be bad and that will give us absolutely the reason to act if we need to.”
But Conservative sources last night suggested Mrs May intended to carry on as leader for as long as it took to get a deal through Parliament. That would mean her leading the Tories into the next party conference at the start of October, a situation many MPS regard as intolerable. Mrs May told the 1922 Committee last month that she would resign if MPS passed her Brexit deal. A Conservative source said last night that Mrs May’s pledge had related to the process of getting the deal through, rather than a date.
The source said: “She understands that the Conservative Party feels a sense that new leadership is required for the second phase of negotiations. That was the commitment she gave to her parliamentary colleagues and that’s one she stands by.”
But one Cabinet minister said: “Things will only get worse before they get better. She needs to go sooner than later.” Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader, said the Prime Minister must quit by the end of May or in early June to allow time for a leadership contest ahead of the Conservative Party conference.
Arlene Foster, the leader of the DUP, accused the Prime Minister of taking a “weak approach”.
AS MIDNIGHT came and went in Brussels, weary EU leaders were ready to agree a nine-month extension of Article 50. But one man was keeping them all from their beds: a highly worked-up Emmanuel Macron.
The French president was adamant that Britain should be ejected from the EU in less than a month’s time, deal or no deal.
Four hours later, the leaders had spoken and a compromise was reached: Mr Macron agreed to an extension to October 31, Hallowe’en, ensuring Brit- ain’s Brexit nightmare would limp on for another six months.
During the talks, seventeen mem- bers had argued for a long extension, three were “open-minded”, four wanted a short delay but would go with the majority, while one – Mr Macron – insisted it should be a short pause or no deal.
“The British people have chosen to leave the European Union,” he had said before the session began. “It is not up to us to do everything to prevent it happening.” In other words, Britain wanted Brexit, so Britain should have Brexit, without further ado.
During the long hours that followed, Mr Macron raged against Britain’s chaotic handling of Brexit. No deal, he argued, would be less damaging than the “dysfunctional” EU that would result from Britain outstaying its welcome.
Theresa May had not given “sufficient clarity” on how she proposed to get a deal ratified by Parliament. The answer was a short extension until May 7 to put “maximum pressure” on MPS.
One diplomat said halfway through the talks: “He is in a bit of a schizophrenic situation – [his] domestic audience demands he is tough on Britain for historic reasons. On the other hand, France is among the most hard-hit in any no deal Brexit. It will take hours before we pull him down from his tree.”
Angela Merkel acted as peacemaker, arguing that the EU should do everything in its power to avoid no deal, which would be particularly damaging to Ireland. The Greeks, however, had a different plan. Brexit should be delayed for a whole year, humiliating Brexiteers as well as forcing Britain to take part in the European elections next month. Perhaps, they said, it would bring about the end of Brexit itself.
Others were focused on how they could enable Mr Macron to agree to a longer extension while still claiming victory. “You could say we are trying to build him a ladder so he can climb out of the hole he has dug himself in,” one diplomat said.
Discussions were held about harsh conditions being imposed on Britain during any extension, to prevent the sort of meddling advocated by Brexiteers. Other leaders suggested a sixmonth extension, so that Mr Macron could claim victory by avoiding the nine-month delay that most wanted.
Mr Macron, however, had an ally in Michel Barnier, the EU’S chief Brexit negotiator, who was also in the room. He told the leaders that if there was a no-deal Brexit, it would be entirely the UK’S fault.
“Britain can always avoid no deal,” he said, according to a senior official. “Britain can ratify the Withdrawal Agreement or revoke Article 50.”
Meanwhile Sophie in ‘t Veld, the deputy to Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit negotiator, echoed the fears of some leaders as she told the BBC’S Newsnight that any assurances from the UK over its future behaviour as an EU member would be based on “scout’s honour” and “cannot be legally binding”.
Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister had been the first of the EU leaders to arrive at the European Council building, and made her first public admission that she was prepared to accept a so-called “flextension” that went beyond the June 30 date she wanted.
“What is important is that any extension enables us to leave at the point at which we ratify a Withdrawal Agreement,” she said.
In other words, Mrs May would accept a longer extension, just as long as Britain could leave sooner if a deal was passed by Parliament. In reality, she had no choice but to accept whatever was put in front of her, having ruled out no deal and revoking Article 50.
Despite the earlier plea from Donald Tusk, the European Council president, to leaders not to “humiliate” Mrs May, her diminished status was clear in the official programme for the meeting, where she was listed as a “guest”.
There was, at least, a brief moment of levity as the German chancellor produced an ipad which showed pictures of her and Mrs May wearing almost identical jackets in their respective parliaments earlier in the day, prompting hearty laughter.
The smiles quickly slipped away, however, as the leaders took their seats.
Mrs May made her pitch: she was making progress in her talks with Jeremy Corbyn, which would continue this week, and she believed it was perfectly possible for Britain to ratify a deal and complete the legislation that would enable a June 30 exit date. She then retired for a very long wait.
Mr Macron, of course, knows that channelling Charles de Gaulle, the man who said “non” to Britain when it originally tried to join the European Community, goes down well with French audiences. And, with European elections looming, it suits his purposes to make an example of Britain to deter French voters from supporting the farright Eurosceptic Marine Le Pen.
But his irritation with Britain’s inability to ratify a deal – and his fear that the UK will cause chaos for the EU if it stays beyond next month’s European elections – was beyond doubt as he waged a one-man war against Mrs May.
“It is with great impatience that I will listen to Theresa May…we have a European renaissance to run and I don’t want Brexit to... block us.”
In the end at half past midnight Brussels time, Mr Macron was convinced to come down off his high horse. The French president could claim a victory of sorts having cut the year-long delay mooted by many to just six months.