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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...raising-the-stakes-brexit-update?srnd=premium
May Asks EU for Brexit Extension Until June 30: Brexit Update
I have to say...well done UK.
Parlment has voted to extend Article 50. Remains to be seen if May will ask for a short delay (months) or a long one (possibly years). Given the last two years I don’t know what utility a short delay would have, probably none so obviously that’s what they’ll ask for.
Also all EU members must agree to grant it.
Prime Minister Theresa May has asked the European Union for an extension to the Brexit deadline until June 30, she told lawmakers in the House of Commons, after pro-Brexit ministers objected to being stuck in the bloc for much longer. It increases the chances that the U.K. could crash out of the bloc at the end of June, and could make for a tense meeting with European leaders on Thursday.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...raising-the-stakes-brexit-update?srnd=premium
May Asks EU for Brexit Extension Until June 30: Brexit Update
I have to say...well done UK.
If Brexit happens, I wonder how many Remainers will be telling the tories to go fuck themselves for life.
The public are tired of political games, says the PM who is still playing political games.
What a bitch.
conspiracy of stupidity is more likelyDon't do her the favour of being sexist!
She's a racist, incompetent, cynical, self-serving, hypocritical waste-of-carbon.
Though I still find it hard to believe the sheer number of factors that had to coincide to get us into this mess. Never mind Putin, I think it's a conspiracy by God. Or maybe the other guy.
conspiracy of stupidity is more likely
edit:
that actually sounds like the name of a band.
Don't do her the favour of being sexist!
She's a racist, incompetent, cynical, self-serving, hypocritical waste-of-carbon.
Though I still find it hard to believe the sheer number of factors that had to coincide to get us into this mess. Never mind Putin, I think it's a conspiracy by God. Or maybe the other guy.
The European Union is poised to take control of Britain’s exit by rejecting Theresa May’s request for a three-month delay and setting a new withdrawal date of no later than 22 May.
The prime minister is seeking an extension of the negotiating period to 30 June to allow the necessary legislation to be passed should she finally get MPs to back her deal next week.
But EU ambassadors at a meeting late on Wednesday night agreed that the risks of having the UK as a member state beyond 23 May, when European elections are due, were too high.
Sources said that during the discussions some member states favoured a longer period and some a shorter one, but that the room coalesced around 22 May as the absolute limit.
The EU’s legal service had indicated that 1 July was the real “legal backstop” for an extension, as the parliament convenes on 2 July.
But the chaos in Westminster has convinced the EU capitals of the dangers that the UK would end up remaining a member state beyond even then without British MEPs having been elected. Such a result could leave the EU’s institutions in “paralysis”, the bloc’s lawyers have advised.
The prime minister’s insistence, in her letter seeking an extension and in the Commons, that she would not hold elections while in Downing Street helped to crystallise the EU’s thinking, sources said.
If the PM was a guy I would have called him a dick. She's a she so I called her a bitch. I can call her a dick if it pleases you
IMO only one factor got us into this current mess: May insisting on dragging it out this far. If she had an ounce of grit, she would have done the sensible thing being to revoke Article 50 after her deal got shot down in flames. Instead - my guess anyway - her ego demands that Brexit has to be her achievement. I'd put down a solid bet that no matter what the outcome of Brexit is, she'll be resigning.
I think the most constructive thing the EU can do is to just say they're done talking, that the Brits can have soft, have it hard or not have it at all whenever they quit dithering. Set no time table & go about their business.
On the other side of it, UK politics have devolved to the point that some intervention from the Queen would be very helpful. Parliament would probably welcome some direction from the Crown. It would take the heat off of them. Apparently not yet-
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/world/europe/queen-elizabeth-brexit-britain.html
Off the cliff it is then.
Be sure to send a Thank You card to the Vlad.
On the positive side, even the most outspoken critics of EU has now dialed it back to "reform EU from within" after watching this shitshow.
At some point doing nothing becomes a lot more damaging than any of the other options.
Doing nothing, remaining, was the best option in the first place. It still is.
It's all as dumb as Trumpism, only worse. Trump is a temporary problem. Brexit is forever. Anybody who thinks the EU won't drive a harder bargain than they did the first time if the UK wants back in down the road isn't thinking straight.
European leaders on Thursday seized control of Britain’s departure from the European Union, sparing British Prime Minister Theresa May the economic earthquake of an uncontrolled split from the European Union next week but demanding that she pass a deal or come up with an alternative by April 12.
The decision was a harsh verdict on May’s political acumen. Nearly two hours of withering cross-examination led her fellow leaders to believe she had no political strategy to pass a divorce deal nor knew how Britain would weather an uncontrolled Brexit next Friday.
May had promised the British people that Brexit would help them take back control from Europe. Instead, she found that her 27 fellow E.U. leaders took back decision-making from her, dictating a political calendar for the coming weeks that gives both sides a time to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
In footage of the E.U. leaders greeting one another in Brussels before settling in for business, May joked with Luxembourg’s prime minister, who just minutes before had echoed Macron and threatened to cast Britain out of the E.U. without a deal. She exchanged a tense and unsmiling double-cheek-peck with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, with whom she has tangled and who has taken a particularly hard line against her.
May opened the session with other heads of state by reading part of the letter she sent a day earlier, a move that frustrated leaders hoping for explanations of her plans. Then the leaders, sitting around a ring-shaped table, peppered her with questions about how she could pass the deal in Parliament despite it having failed twice already, according to an E.U. official familiar with what happened in the room.
“You could feel the patience running thin,” the official said. The official and others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door discussions.
Another diplomat described the discussion as “a bit like coming from another planet.” May presented no convincing details about her political strategy, no insights into what she would do if Britain crashed out without a deal and no willingness to make concessions, the diplomat said.
“E.U. leaders do not have a lot of illusions. And they are pretty limited in how to help her,” the diplomat said.
Anybody who thinks the EU won't drive a harder bargain than they did the first time if the UK wants back in down the road isn't thinking straight.
Spanish Gibraltar would be a hell of a thing to see.
yea that is one of those things ... where if all is cool with that arrangement then power to them.. But ffs what is GB still doing there...