Theresa May has signalled that she would accept the EU’s likely offer of a lengthy Brexit delay at a summit of leaders as the UK would still be able to leave when the withdrawal agreement is approved.
Arriving in Brussels, the prime minister said it would still possible for Britain to quit by 22 May if the Commons chose to approve her Brexit deal in the coming weeks.
May is expected to have her request for a limited extension to 30 June rejected by the EU27 in favour of a longer potential delay to Brexit of up to a year.
The EU is split 50:50 on whether to offer an extension to the end of the year or 31 March 2020. The prime minister has previously said that she could not countenance the UK remaining an EU member state after 30 June, and had wanted to keep pressure on MPs to back her deal by creating another cliff-edge date.
But May told reporters in Brussels that the UK would still be able to leave the bloc under the EU’s likely offer – once parliament had approved the 585-page withdrawal agreement and 26-page political declaration on the future.
She said: “The purpose of this summit is to agree an extension, which gives us more time to agree a deal to enable us to leave the EU in that smooth and orderly way.
“What matters, I think, is I have asked for an extension to June 30 but what is important is that any extension enables us to leave at the point at which we ratify a withdrawal agreement. So we could leave on 22 May and start to build our brighter future.”
The EU wants to avoid being drawn into the British political crisis by offering a short extension only to have to return to the issue within months.
But arriving at the summit French president Emmanuel Macron said “nothing was guaranteed” on what he called “the rumours of a long extension”.
France is taking the most hardline stance on a delay to Brexit. “The key for us is that the European project maintains its coherence,” the French president said. While he said the EU27 had stayed together through the Brexit process, he suggested this could not be taken for granted.
“The viability and the unity of the European project is still at stake and it is indispensable that nothing is going to compromise the European project in the months to come. We have a European renaissance to drive, I believe profoundly that nothing related to Brexit should block us on this point.”
Other EU leaders sounded more open to a long…
