ANOTHER YEAR IN BREXIT LIMBO?
PM ‘could make UK wait even longer’ to avoid no-deal cliff edge (but we’d have to keep paying EU billions)
THERESA May is prepared to delay Britain’s transition out of the EU by another year, Brussels said last night.
A senior EU diplomat said she told fellow leaders she was ‘ready to consider’ a plan to delay departure until the end of 2021 – five-and-a-half years after the vote to leave.
It would mean contributing another annual £10billion payment to the EU budget – on top of the £39billion ‘divorce bill’.
Full application of Brussels laws and free movement of people would continue.
Some ministers, including international trade secretary Liam Fox, believe the plan could buy more time to fix the Northern Ireland border issue, which is threatening to derail Brexit negotiations.
Mrs May yesterday ducked questions about the prospect of a longer transition as she arrived in Brussels for talks.
And Downing Street declined to say whether the UK could pursue the idea, saying the current proposal is for it to end in December 2020.
But the Prime Minister is said to have raised the proposal during her 20-minute presentation to fellow leaders last night.
The unnamed EU diplomat said: ‘There were no new proposals but she also mentioned the transition period. She said the UK would be ready to consider the extension of the transition period.’
Antonio Tajani, the president of the European Parliament, who was in the room for Mrs May’s presentation, said that the PM
signalled that she was‘ not against’ the idea but was‘ more or less neutral’ about it. But the Euro sceptic Conservative MEP David Campbell- Bannerman warned that extending the transition was a‘ potential trigger for a leadership election’.
He added: ‘I am totally opposed to any extension of the transition – it’s bad enough anyway. People want Brexit done.’
Nadine Dorries urged fellow Tory MPs to join her in backing David Davis as party leader, saying: ‘If Theresa May is asking for a longer transition period, she is stalling. It’s time to stand aside and let someone who can negotiate get on with it and deliver. I fully support DD as an interim leader. I’ve done my bit. It’s time for my colleagues to do theirs.’
Former minister Nick Boles, who campaigned for Remain, said it would be ‘ madness’ to extend the transition and continue making full contributions to the EU budget. He said it would be much better to seek temporary membership of the European Economic Area.
EU leaders had hoped to clinch a deal at this week’s summit in Brussels. But this foundered on the issue of Northern Ireland at the weekend, after Mrs May warned she would not accept a ‘backstop’ plan that would see the province left on its own in the EU’s customs union.
The EU is considering an alternative British proposal that could see the whole UK remain in a temporary customs arrangement after the transition if the border issue is not resolved. But Cabinet ministers are demanding that the plan is time-limited’ prompting Brussels to demand a ‘backstop to the backstop’, which
‘Creative way out of a dilemma’
would still involve Northern Ireland being carved off.
Mrs May last night said both sides would have to work together to ‘find a creative way out of this dilemma’.
She added: ‘We have shown we can do difficult deals together constructively and I remain confident of a good outcome. The last stages will need courage, trust and leadership on both sides.’
Earlier Mrs May appealed to Emmanuel Macron not to block a Brexit deal. The PM held an unscheduled meeting with the French president in Brussels just hours after his government announced it was stepping up preparations for a no-deal Brexit, including plans to require British visitors to get visas.
Arriving at the summit last night, Mrs May said very good progress had been made in recent weeks and insisted ‘we can achieve a deal’.
But she ducked questions about whether the UK would pursue the idea of extending Britain’s transition out of the EU by another year, taking it to the end of 2021.
The proposal has been floated by the EU in recent days and was backed publicly by Ireland yesterday. Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said it would create ‘the space and time for the UK and the EU to be able to negotiate UK-wide customs arrangements’.
Eloise Todd, who heads the Best for Britain campaign for a second referendum, said: ‘The Government has had over two years to give the country an answer on Brexit, and it has failed. What we really need is for the people to unblock this impasse: Parliament should let the people decide on whether to accept the Brexit deal or whether to opt for our current terms.’
An EU source said the 27 leaders had decided not to call a special Brexit summit in November as ‘not enough progress has been achieved’.
Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitë warned that the Tory civil war on Europe was undermining Britain’s negotiating position.
Asked what was needed from the UK to achieve a breakthrough, she said: ‘To decide finally what they want and to rally behind the Prime Minister all together and not split, not battling, to have a joint opinion and joint stance.’
Mrs Grybauskaitë suggested the EU might ‘compromise if we know what the UK really wants’. She added: ‘It is very difficult for the European side to negotiate with someone who does not have full support.’
In a separate move, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab confirmed that MPs will not be able to table amendments to the final deal in the socalled ‘meaningful vote’ on the issue later this year. Mr Raab said the restriction was needed to provide ‘as much certainty as possible’.
Labour’s Brexit spokesman, Sir Keir Starmer, described the decision as unacceptable.