British PM Theresa May has no intention of extending EU negotiations

Thursday 14th February 2019 07:14 EST
 
 

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay has downplayed the possibility of Prime Minister Theresa May seeking an extension to the negotiation period with the bloc in order to avoid a no-deal Brexit. Responding to questions on the BBC's flagship radio show, after Chief Brexit Negotiator Olly Robbins was apparently overheard in a Brussels bar saying May would ask lawmakers to vote on whether they wanted to extend the negotiation period, Barclay said it is still May's policy to leave the bloc on March 29, two years after the Conservative Party leader triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

“It's not in anyone's interest to have an extension without any clarity,” Barclay said. In the recording, civil servant Robbins appeared to say the PM would in March give Members of Parliament in the House of Commons a choice to either back her withdrawal deal, which has struggled to make it through the Commons, or to extend Article 50. May's withdrawal deal, the result of over 18 months of negotiations with the EU, became lodged in the Commons after lawmakers rejected it by a historical margin last month, then later passed an amendment to find legally-binding changes to the Irish backstop insurance policy on the open border in Ireland.

One of the key pillars of the document, the backstop was rejected by right-wing Tories and the Democratic Unionist Party, a Northern Irish group propping up May's government, who said its constituents were opposed to any possibility that the UK territory could be subject to EU regulations while the rest of the UK was not. The clause is a safety net policy to ensure there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland if future talks with Brussels suddenly collapse.

In a recent Commons address, May was determined that she can convince the EU to tweak the backstop, either by finding a so-called alternative arrangement, which the UK government was yet to specify, or by adding a fixed expiry date, or by granting the UK powers to unilaterally withdraw from it.


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