E.U. to delay Brexit until Jan. 31.
LONDON >> Britain got Brexit breathing space but no clarity on Monday when the European Union granted a three-month delay to the U.K.’s departure from the bloc, postponing it until Jan. 31.
British politicians immediately began using the extra time to do what they have done for more than three years: bicker about Brexit.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson pushed for an early election as a way of breaking the political deadlock over the country’s stalled departure from the EU, only to be rebuffed by lawmakers.
Legislators voted by 299-70 for Johnson’s motion to hold a Dec. 12 election — short of the twothirds majority of the 650 members of Parliament needed for it to pass.
Still, an election appears inevitable well before the next scheduled one in 2022 if Britain is to move on from the stasis caused by a prime minister who vowed to deliver Brexit “do or die” and a Parliament that has repeatedly thwarted him.
Johnson said he would try again Tuesday, using a different procedure: a bill, which only needs a simple majority to pass.
“We will not allow this paralysis to continue, and one way or another we must proceed straight to an election,” Johnson said.
Earlier, he had accused his opponents of betraying voters’ decision to leave the EU by thwarting the government’s Brexit plans.
He said that unless there was an election, the government would be “like Charlie Brown, endlessly running up to kick the ball only to have Parliament whisk it away.”
“We cannot continue with this endless delay.”
Yet further delay stretched ahead after the EU agreed to postpone Brexit until Jan. 31, acting to avert a chaotic U.K. departure just three days before Britain was due to become the first country ever to leave the 28-nation bloc.