Show us your Brexit Plan B, say EU leaders

Theresa May given 10 days to reveal her next move, as Britons take to the streets en masse and Eurostar services are suspended.

Pro-Brexit supporters face police officers securing the gates of Downing Street after MPs rejected Theresa May’s Brexit plan for a third time.

Britain is on track to crash out of the EU without a deal unless Theresa May can give Brussels details of her Plan B within ten days, EU leaders said last night.

“April 12 is now the new March 29,” Martin Selmayr, the EU’s most senior civil servant, said after the prime minister’s third defeat yesterday.

Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, expressed anger that the House of Commons had rejected an “orderly Brexit”.

“Very discouraging. UK must now show a way to avoid a no-deal. Almost out of options and time. We will intensify our no-deal preparations,” he tweeted.

Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, called on other EU leaders to delay Brexit for at least a year if MPs backed plans for a softer Brexit in a vote on Monday.

Britons took to the streets en masse for a rally in central London on March 29, organised by Leave Means Leave. Picture: AFP

“I believe we must be open to a long extension should the United Kingdom decide to fundamentally reconsider its approach to Brexit,” he said. “I believe that will result in a generous and understanding response from the 27.”

The EU has given Mrs May until April 8 to explain her next steps after Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, summoned her to a crisis meeting of EU leaders.

“A no-deal scenario on April 12 is now a likely scenario,” said a European Commission spokesman. “The EU has been preparing for this since December 2017 and is now fully prepared for a no-deal scenario at midnight on April 12.”

EU ambassadors agreed on Thursday that Britain would have to pay a pounds 39 billion bill and accept the Irish backstop before beginning emergency talks to prevent an economic crash after a no-deal Brexit.

“The benefits of the withdrawal agreement, including a transition period, will in no circumstances be replicated in a no-deal scenario,” the spokesman added.

Prime Minister Theresa May during Friday’s debate in the House of Commons on the government's Withdrawal Agreement Bill.

A European Council source said, “We expect the UK to indicate a way forward . . . well in time” for the summit and a meeting of foreign affairs ministers on April 8. Charles Michel, the Belgian prime minister, said: “I call upon UK authorities to act in the country’s interest and present a clear way forward.”

Michel Barnier, the EU’s lead negotiator, told European ambassadors on Thursday that Britain would be presented with a simple choice: no deal, or a long delay to Brexit.

Britain is expected to take a long extension, beginning with a one-year delay to Brexit, pushing withdrawal from the EU back until April 2020.

A senior EU source said the postponement would “almost certainly” be longer because new mandates and terms for the top Brussels jobs this winter would push negotiations well into next year.

“If it is long then it may well end up as more like two years and it will not be Brexit by the end of it,” the source said.

For a long delay, the EU will set conditions including participation in European elections, a change of political leadership in Britain, a soft Brexit or a second referendum.

Meanwhile, a protester waving a St George’s English flag spent the night on the roof of London’s St Pancras rail terminal, forcing the suspension of Eurostar trains.

Services between London and continental Europe were suspended for several hours because of the trespasser.

“A 44-year-old man has this morning been arrested for trespass and obstruction of the railway, having spent the night on the roof of St Pancras Railway Station,” British Transport Police said in a statement.

A police spokesman confirmed the man had been waving an English flag in an apparent act of protest.

The incident happened a day after thousands of protesters massed outside the British parliament, many of them waving English and United Kingdom flags, in protest against Brexit being delayed.

- The Times