UK seeking long talks extension if May’s deal not passed – report

British prime minister Theresa May's chief Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins has been overheard saying the UK is seeking a long extension to negotiations if parliament refuses to pass Mrs May's deal.

Mr Robbins was overheard by an ITV news reporter in a bar talking about strategy. According to the broadcaster, Mr Robbins said the plan is to delay the vote on the deal until the final week of March, and then give parliament a choice between a revised version of Mrs May’s deal and a very long extension of Article 50 talks.

The goal would be to scare Brexit supporters into line. A government spokesman said: “We don’t propose to comment on alleged remarks from a private conversation. The government’s focus is on securing the improvements Parliament needs to pass a deal so we leave the EU on March 29.”

The ITV reporter, Angus Walker, wrote: “What is also striking is how Robbins confirmed that the original plan was for the backstop, which would keep the UK in the customs union, was designed not as a ‘safety net’ for the island of Ireland but as ‘a bridge’ to the long-term trading relationship – which is something the prime minister has always denied.”

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He reported Robbins as saying: “The big clash all along is the ‘safety net’. We agreed a bridge but it came out as a ‘safety net’.”

These remarks by Mr Robbins are explosive, Walker wrote, “because they will confirm the fears of Tory Brexiters that he and May always saw some form of customs union membership as the long term ambition for the UK’s trading relationship with the EU”.

Two officials familiar with the prime minister’s plans said May is focused on persuading the EU to reopen the withdrawal agreement to secure legally binding changes within it. That’s despite the prime minister appearing to give herself wriggle room on backstop changes in her statement to the House of Commons.

The officials said that only attaching a legal codicil to the withdrawal agreement would be unlikely to satisfy Mrs May’s Northern Irish allies in the Democratic Unionist Party, who have made clear reopening the agreement is the only path they’d consider.

The British government’s Brexit motion this week is likely to be similar to last month’s, one of the officials said, and would reflect the amendment to seek changes to the backstop as well as a provision to provide the extra time Mrs May needs to negotiate with the EU.

So-called meaningful vote

Mrs May’s spokesman, James Slack, told reporters her plan is to fast-track Brexit legislation if and when her deal is ratified via a so-called meaningful vote in Parliament. That could involve overriding a requirement – enshrined in 2010 legislation –for there to be 21 parliamentary sitting days between striking an international agreement and passing it into law.

“Once we have a meaningful vote, the prime minister thinks the British public will want us to leave on time,” Mr Slack said. He said a clause would be included in the bill to essentially repeal the 21-day requirement, and it will be up to parliament to pass it.

In the meantime, Mrs May planned to speak to at least two European leaders this evening, and officials including Brexit secretary Steve Barclay and her de facto deputy, David Lidington – in Strasbourg on Tuesday – would continue to meet with EU officials.

Mrs May suggested she’s open minded about how the changes to the backstop are made in order to guarantee that it’s only temporary. The key point is that whatever additional text the EU agrees to must have the same legal force as the withdrawal agreement itself, she said.

The prime minister has been asked repeatedly to rule out a no-deal Brexit, and to commit to extending Article 50 in the event she cannot get an agreement through parliament – but has avoided giving a direct answer each time. But she also won’t say if she’d back no-deal in those circumstances.

“What I want, what the government wants is a deal with the European Union,” she said. “If you don’t want no-deal, you have to agree a deal.”

Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn accused May of “playing chicken with people’s livelihoods” by running down the clock to get her Brexit deal through parliament.

“She’s playing for time and playing with people’s jobs, our economic security and the future of our industries,” Mr Corbyn told the House of Commons. “The prime minister is merely engaged in the pretence of working across parliament to find solutions.”

He urged ministers reported to be close to resigning to block a no-deal divorce to act. “To stand by and do nothing would be a complete dereliction of duty.”

Mrs May told the House of Commons the UK’s demand for a renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement are “reasonable” given that neither side wants to enter into the Irish backstop in the first place. She said she’s taken parliament’s “unequivocal” message to her EU counterparts that it needs “legally binding” changes to show the provision is temporary.

The prime minister said she continues to explore the so-called Malthouse proposal – a proposal by pro-EU and pro-Brexit wings of her party to find a technological solution to the Irish border, and that the other two possible changes would be to add an exit clause or an end date to the backstop.

“We need some time to complete that process,” Mrs May said.

Mrs May rejected Labour’s suggestion that the UK should enter into a customs union with the EU after Brexit, pointing out that the House of Commons has already voted against the option.

“Membership of the customs union would be a less desirable outcome than that which is provided in the political declaration” of the deal already reached, she said. That deal “would provide for an independent trade policy for the UK that would allow us to strike our own trade deals around the world”. – Bloomberg