THERESA May has been told that she might not be permitted to delay Brexit. In a press conference that will have alarmed Downing Street, Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, made clear that the UK could still crash out of Europe without a deal in just nine days’ time.
Barnier acknowledged that MPs had backed a motion ruling out a hard Brexit, but warned that “voting against no deal does not prevent it from happening”.
Barnier said everyone should “now finalise all preparations for a no-deal scenario".
He said it would be up to the leaders of the EU’s 27 other member states “to assess the reason and the usefulness for an extension” but that they would need a “concrete plan” on what would happen during the delay.
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Barnier also hinted that any delay from Brussels might need to be linked to a new referendum or a General Election.
“It is our duty to ask whether this extension would be useful because an extension will be something which would extend uncertainty and uncertainty costs. My feeling is ... a longer extension needs to be linked to something new. There needs to be a new event or a new political process.”
Barnier’s comments were echoed in Berlin. Michael Roth, Germany’s Europe Minister, accused the UK of treating Brexit like a “game”.
Earlier, during a tetchy Cabinet meeting, there had been no agreement on how long a delay May should ask for.
Reports suggest that the Prime Minister will write to the EU tonight asking for an extension in talks until 30 June – with the possibility of a longer delay kept open.
One Cabinet source told the BBC that the longer delay could be of up to two years.
Commons leader Andrea Leadsom is said to have criticised colleagues, saying the government now operated a “Remain Cabinet”, not a “Brexit Cabinet”.
“This used to be the Cabinet that would deliver Brexit and now from what I’m hearing it’s not,” she reportedly said.
May had hoped to have a third meaningful vote on her Brexit deal ahead of the EU summit tomorrow, but Speaker John Bercow said on Monday that she could not ask MPs to vote on something they had already rejected. During the meeting with her ministers May made clear that she wanted the Commons to have another vote “as soon as possible”.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “What you can see from the Prime Minister and her colleagues is an absolute determination to find a way in which Parliament could vote for the UK to leave the European Union with a deal.
“The Prime Minister has been very clear throughout that she wants that to happen as soon as possible.”
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Asked if May agreed with the Solicitor General, Robert Buckland, who described the situation after Bercow’s ruling on Monday as a “constitutional crisis”, her spokesman said: “If you were to look back at the speech the Prime Minister gave, just before meaningful vote two, she said that if MPs did not support meaningful vote two we would be in a crisis. Events yesterday tell you that situation has come to pass.”
MPs will debate how the process should go forward on Monday.
Meanwhile, Labour Leave has been fined £8000 for failing to report donations during the 2016 EU referendum.
The Electoral Commission said there were 11 donations worth £420,000 during the referendum that went unreported. The watchdog said the public needed to know where the money had come from.
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