May seeks another Brexit delay to buy time to 'break the logjam'
London: British Prime Minister Theresa May will ask the European Union to delay Brexit – again – to give her time to try to find a “unified approach” to Brexit with the Labour opposition to break the UK’s Brexit stalemate.
“Today I am taking action to break the logjam,” she said. “This debate, this division, cannot drag on much longer.
“It is putting members of Parliament and everyone else under immense pressure and it is doing damage to our politics … We can and must find the compromises that will deliver what the British people voted for.”
The decision – reached after a marathon eight hour Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing St – will infuriate hardline Brexiters in her party if, as it suggests, the government is now open to Labour’s ideas for a “softer” Brexit including a customs union with the EU and closer alignment to the Single Market.
So far May has refused to cross her "red lines" that included withdrawal from the EU's Customs Union and Single Market. If May did make such concessions it could lead to resignations from government, and a significant rebellion from Brexiteer MPs.
But it will also put Labour and its leader Jeremy Corbyn in the spotlight to decide whether they can find common ground with the government and support a form of Brexit, rather than push for a referendum or general election.
Labour showed signs of flexibility on Monday during votes on Brexit options in Parliament, where it backed several "soft Brexit" options that were similar but different to its own proposals.
If May and Corbyn cannot reach an agreed position, Parliament will be asked to come up with a majority decision on “a number of options”, and May committed the government to abide by the decision of the House of Commons.
May said she would ask EU leaders next week to approve a delay to Brexit, which is otherwise due to happen on April 12.
She said she would set a timetable for the process so the Brexit withdrawal could be ratified before May 22, so the UK did not have to take part in European parliamentary elections.
May said it was a "decisive moment in the story of these islands [that] requires national unity to deliver the national interest".
May addressed the nation after 6pm on Tuesday, local time, having led a discussion of the government’s options that began at 9am.
Cabinet ministers’ phones had been confiscated so they could not leak discussions as they went along, or caucus with Conservative factions.
European Council president Donald Tusk tweeted "let us be patient" in response to May's statement.
More to come