May: My regret over Brexit delay
THERESA MAY has described the delay to Brexit as a “matter of great personal regret”, adding: “It is now time for MPs to decide.”
In a televised address from 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister said that it was “a matter of great personal regret for me” that Brexit will not go ahead on March 29.
She blamed MPs for failing to agree a means to implement the result of the 2016 referendum and said she believes voters just want this stage of the Brexit process to be over. She told voters: “I am on your side.”
Mrs May said: “Of this, I am absolutely sure: You the public have had enough. You are tired of the infighting, you’re tired of the political games and the arcane procedural rows, tired of MPs talking about nothing else but Brexit when you have real concerns about our children’s schools, our National Health Service, knife crime.
“You want this stage of the Brexit process to be over and done with. I agree. I am on your side. It is now time for MPs to decide.”
Earlier Mrs May requested a three-month delay to Brexit, postponing the UK’s departure from the European Union from March 29 to June 30.
The PM made the request in a letter to European Council president Donald Tusk exactly 1,000 days after the 2016 referendum which delivered a 52%-48% majority to quit the EU.
And she sparked speculation that she may step down if either MPs or Europe demand a longer extension to the Article 50 negotiation process, declaring: “As Prime Minister, I am not prepared to delay Brexit any further than June 30.”
If the delay is approved at a Brussels summit today, Mrs May will rush legislation through both Houses of Parliament next week to remove the date March 29 from Brexit laws. And she told MPs she intends to table her Withdrawal Agreement for a third time in the Commons, in the hope of overturning massive defeats inflicted on it in January and March.
Aides declined to name a date for the third “meaningful vote” – known in Westminster as MV3 – but said it would happen “as soon as possible”.
Brussels has made clear that any extension of the Article 50 negotiation process beyond June would require the UK to take part in elections to the European Parliament in May – something which Mrs May said was in the interests neither of Britain or the EU.
She told MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions: “The idea that three years after voting to leave the EU, the people of this country should be asked to elect a new set of MEPs is, I believe, unacceptable.”
Aides said Mrs May will “passionately” make her case for a three-month delay today to the leaders of the remaining 27 EU states, whose unanimous approval is required for any extension.
But an unconfirmed report in French news magazine Le Point suggested that President Emmanuel Macron will argue against any postponement beyond March 29 – just eight days away.