BRUSSELS – A humbled, even humiliated British Prime Minister Theresa May came to Brussels on Thursday not to dictate the terms of her country’s exit from the European Union, but to plead for delay — to ask, not to demand, terms for a brief extension of its departure.
Ahead of the meeting of E.U. leaders – a nail-biter that was expected to begin mid-afternoon and could stretch late into the crisp Belgian night – attitudes appeared to be hardening against the British leader. Even some E.U. anglophiles who once held out hope Britain would change its mind and stay in the union were snapping that the sooner the door slams on British membership, the better.
It was clear that Britain has not taken back control from Europe, as the hardline advocates of Brexit envisioned. May arrived not exactly as a supplicant, but as less than an equal.
May on Wednesday wrote a letter to ask for a delay of the U.K. departure date until the end of June, wanting to use the extra time to pass a divorce deal. The Europeans, their trust at an end, want her to pass the deal before granting her a delay, potentially leaving a final decision until just hours before Britain would otherwise leave on March 29.
Arriving at what could be her final meeting with Britain as a member of the European Union, May said she was there to deliver Brexit.
“This delay is a matter of personal regret to me,” she told reporters, standing in the glassy entryway to the summit building, where Britain’s Union Jack may soon be culled from the row of the 28 E.U. members’ flags. “But a short extension would give parliament the time to make a final choice that delivers on the result of the referendum.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that E.U. leaders would likely approve May's request for a three-month extension, as long as the British parliament approves the divorce agreement.
"In principle, we can comply with that wish if next week we did get a positive vote on the withdrawal documents in the British parliament," Merkel told German lawmakers before setting off for Brussels.
Left unsaid was what happens if the withdrawal deal fails to clear parliament – a real possibility since it has already been defeated twice by historic margins. That would almost certainly force another emergency summit at the end of next week.
In London, May’s allies said the prime minister was under “extraordinary pressure.” Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC, “No prime minister in living memory has been tested in the way that she has.”
[Can Brexit be stopped? 800,000 people are trying so hard that parliament’s website is broken.]
By now, E.U. policymakers have little sympathy for May. They’re fed up with Britain and want it to leave. They no longer hold out hope for a second referendum in Britain that could reverse the Brexit decision, preferring to break up and move on.
“We don’t want in the coming months, in the coming years, to be busy with Brexit,” said the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, who used to post wistful videos on Twitter appealing Britons to abandon Brexit. “We want to be busy with the renewal of the European Union,” he told reporters ahead of the meeting.
The Europeans are keenly aware that the Brexit chaos is being driven by members of May's own Conservative Party. She has failed to win over her own cabinet, which now confronts her daily. She is losing control, or has lost control, of the process. That makes them nervous.
Europeans hope the British leader will ask for a much longer extension and declare her willingness to hold elections in May for the European Parliament. So far she has ruled them out for fear of riling hardline Brexit backers within her own Conservative party.
Ahead of the summit, European diplomats were unusually open about their dark fears for the coming days. Many worried that the economic tornado set off by a sudden British departure could hurt ordinary people across Europe. They expected they would also get blamed.
“My lack of answer to my mother or to my friends: ‘Why have you contributed to this mess? Why have you done this? Why haven’t you done anything against it?’” said one senior E.U. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss planning ahead of the meetings. “If that is the scenario, it is the most bitter experience.”
Diplomats were concerned about the hours of meetings, which can at times be confrontational. In meetings with other E.U. leaders, May sticks to her talking points. They see her as focused on preserving her party and her position. They once felt sympathy but she has drawn down the reserves.
May is quickly running out of options back home — with the prime minister and lawmakers now pointing the blame for the chaos at each other.
On Wednesday night, May appeared at the lectern at 10 Downing Street to speak directly to the public. She charged that lawmakers were blocking Brexit. “You are tired of the infighting,” the prime minister said. “You are tired of the political games and the arcane procedural rows.”
May said, “I am on your side.”
Lawmakers across the parties shouted that it was May who had bungled Brexit — and that it was her own Conservative Party and 75 hardline Brexiteers who have blocked passage of her exit deal.
Some saw the “us versus the Parliament” message of May’s speech as threatening — and no way to convince middle-of-the-road critics to swing behind her deal.
The morning after May’s speech, Commons Speaker John Bercow told Parliament, “None of you is a traitor.”
“The sole duty of every member of Parliament is to do what he or she thinks is right,” he said.
Wes Streeting, a Labour lawmaker, said it could whip up anger towards members of Parliament, some of whom already receive death threats.
Streeting called May’s speech “incendiary and irresponsible. If any harm comes to any of us, she will have to accept her share of responsibility.”
A Downing Street spokeswoman told reporters that they “flatly” rejected claims that May’s statement put lawmakers at risk.
But lawmakers said the rhetoric hurt May’s cause.
“There’s absolutely no chance she is going to win over MPs in sufficient numbers after that statement,” Lisa Nandy, another Labour lawmaker, told the ITV broadcaster. “It was an attack on liberal democracy itself … I will not support a government that takes such a reckless, dangerous approach.”
A Conservative Party member of Parliament, Sam Gyimah, told the BBC that May’s new approach was “low blow.” He said he would not be blackmailed by May and that the deal is still a poor one.
Members of the 48 percent of people who voted to stay inside the European Union in the June 2016 Brexit referendum were growing increasingly nervous about what might happen over the next few days.
An online public petition page calling on May to cancel Brexit attracted more than half a million signatures in mere hours -- and then crashed. The British Parliament's petitions website went down on Thursday morning due to a surge in the volume of traffic.
Booth reported from London. Karla Adam in London and Quentin Ariès in Brussels contributed to this report.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/britain-pleads-for-brexit-delay-as-crucial-european-summit-gets-underway/2019/03/21/824d7a4c-4b4c-11e9-8cfc-2c5d0999c21e_story.html
2019-03-21 13:51:36Z
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