Theresa May asks EU for June 30 Brexit

British PM Theresa May told parliament last night she had written to the EU asking to delay Brexit until June 30.

Theresa May in the British Commons last night. Picture: AFP

British Prime Minister Theresa May told parliament last night, on eve of an EU summit in Brussels, that she had written to EU President Donald Tusk “informing him that the UK seeks an extension to the Article 50 period to June 30”.

An EU official has confirmed that Mr Tusk received the letter.

Britain is currently due to leave the bloc on March 29, but parliament has twice rejected Mrs May’s divorce deal with the EU.

In her letter, Mrs May told Mr Tusk that she intended to try a third time to get the deal ­approved.

Any delay to Brexit, however, needs the approval of all 27 ­remaining EU member states, who are meeting in Brussels today.

Cabinet ministers had been expecting Mrs May to ask for the Brexit deadline to be pushed back to June 30, although they felt that the option of requesting a longer delay was on the cards.

Mrs may will travel to Brussels later today (AEDT) with little to offer the 27 other EU countries.

By law, Britain will leave the EU with or without a deal in eight days.

MPs rejected the deal she negotiated with the EU for a second time last week by 149 votes. She was hoping to hold a third vote this week but Speaker John Bercow torpedoed that on Monday, saying the ­motion would have to be substantially different.

The Prime Minister hopes to hold ­another vote but even if her deal were passed, a short extensio­n would have been needed to get legislation through ­parliament.

Senior ministers said the Prime Minister had appeared un­decided on whether to ask for a longer extension and anger Tory Brexiteers or risk the humiliation of having terms imposed on her.

After a two-hour meeting with her cabinet on Tuesday, several minister had been none the wiser about her direction.

One minister said of the meeting: “She sat there like a nodding dog, not making a proper decision when she should be leading.”

Another senior minister said: “She just absorbed everything and sent us on our way.” Yet another source was reported as saying the divisions at the top of British government made it feel “like the last days of Rome”.

At the Tuesday meeting, Commons leader Andrea Leadsom accused some of her colleagues of being more concerned to avoid a no-deal exit than delivering the result of the 2016 referendum:

“This used to be the cabinet that would deliver Brexit and now from what I’m hearing it’s not,” she said.

Treasury Secretary Liz Truss described a “barren land ruled by (Labour Party leader) Jeremy Corbyn with all of us sitting in ­gulags” if Brexit ended in failure.

There is at least agreement against Britain contesting the ­European parliament elections in May, but these would need to be triggered by April 11, a new cliff-edge for a decision to be taken.

In what appeared to be a co-ordinated effort to limit her ­options, EU leaders had set a ­series of conditions before today’s summit.

Brussels’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said if Mrs May failed to get agreement for the withdrawal agreement in the next week, she would have to commit to a change in political direction.

“What would be the purpose and outcome of an ­extension and how could we be sure that at the end … we are not back in the same situation as today?” he said.

“EU authorities want to know what the underlying polit­ical process, which would be the grounds for that extension, would be — (whether it is a) political process within the House of Commons or in the general political debate in the UK. A longer ­extension needs to be linked to something new.”

In a private meeting with EU foreign and European affairs ministers­, Mr Barnier said only a change to the British government’s demands, a general election or another referendum would justify a long delay.

“A timetable to a new referendum or a new elect­ion could justify a longer extension,” he told ministers, according to a diplomatic note.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told No 10 that the EU could veto a request for a short ­extension that did not have a plan attached.

The Times