U.K. GOVERNMENT DOWNPLAYS SUGGESTION IT WILL SEEK BREXIT DELAY

LONDON» On the eve of more divisive votes in Parliament over Brexit, the British government on Wednesday downplayed a report that it plans to offer lawmakers a choice between backing Prime Minister Theresa May’s unpopular divorce deal and a delay to the U.K.’s exit from the European Union.

An ITV News correspondent, Angus Walker, said he overheard negotiator Olly Robbins in a Brussels bar saying the government would ask Parliament to back her agreement, rejected by lawmakers last month, or seek an extension to the Brexit deadline.

May told lawmakers that Parliament had approved a two-year countdown to Brexit, and “that ends on the 29th of March. We want to leave with a deal, and that’s what we’re working for.”

She told parliamentarians not to put much credence in “what someone said to someone else as overheard by someone else in a bar.”

Lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected May’s Brexit deal with the EU last month, and she is now trying to secure changes before bringing it back for another vote.

The EU insists it won’t renegotiate the agreement, though it is holding talks about potential tweaks to a non-binding political declaration that accompanies it.

If a deal is not approved by the British and European parliaments before March 29, the U.K. faces a messy, sudden Brexit that could cause severe economic disruption.