LONDON – In the past two years British Prime Minister Theresa May has insisted repeatedly that Britain will exit the European Union on schedule on March
LONDON – In the past two years, British Prime Minister Theresa May has insisted repeatedly that Britain will exit the European Union on schedule on March 29 she has said so 108 times from the dispatch box in the House of Commons.
But on Thursday, the embattled leader, whose days in office appear to be numbered, was forced to appeal to her fellow EU national leaders for a three-month postponement, throwing into deeper confusion a Brexit process that has pushed Britain into a constitutional crisis, dividing the country.
May’s face-to-face request at a summit in Brussels clearly strained the patience of the EU’s other 27 national leaders, who are close to a breaking point. They fear Britain’s tangled exit will never get resolved. During the summit, the Luxembourg prime minister told reporters: ‚We are not in a souk and we are not going to bargain for the next five years.‘
French President Emmanuel Macron was especially reluctant about granting an extension, questioning why Britain should have more time to get its house in order, and skeptical whether it ever would.
‚We are heading towards no deal,‘ he said as the leaders gathered.
His foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, told the French National Assembly on the eve of a two-day EU summit in Brussels this week that France would oppose a lengthy Brexit postponement. He said Paris would only support a short extension, one giving the British parliament sufficient time to approve a contentious withdrawal agreement May and the EU agreed to in November but one that British lawmakers have overwhelmingly rejected twice.
Without that approval, ‚the central scenario is a no-deal exit we are ready for it,‘ the foreign minister said.
Charles Grant, director of the research group Center for European Reform, says Macron worries most about the possible ’spoiling‘ impact Britain may have on European Parliament elections this May, if Britain participates as a result of any lengthy Brexit delay. He ‚fears the UK will ‚pollute‘ EU politics if the Brits hang around for a prolonged period,‘ Grant tweeted.
