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Brexit: May arrives at EU summit refusing to say if she will resign if UK has to stay in beyond 30 June - live news Brexit: May addresses EU leaders to formally request article 50 extension until 30 June - live news
(about 2 hours later)
From the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope Here is footage of the EU leaders milling around at the start of the meeting.
Government sources: Theresa May statement on the results of her EU meeting overnight expected tomorrow at midday.MPs are also unlikely to be asked to attend the House of Commons next week although this is subject to confirmation. Roundtable at today's Special #EuropeanCouncil #Article50 https://t.co/B1ApsLLBIR
Dalia Grybauskaitė, the Lithuanian president, told reporters that it was “highly probable” that the extension offered to the UK would be longer than the one until 30 June requested by Theresa May, the BBC’s Gavin Lee reports. The highlight came when Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, showed Theresa May something on her iPad. May responded with a burst of laughter.
Lithuanian President Dalia #Grybauskaitė says on the prospect of a #Brexit extension “there is not much sense to debate at length” and “it is highly probable that there will be a longer extension” pic.twitter.com/BCKM3o4lFK Sadly, the EU does not provide audio with this footage, so we don’t know what the joke was.
Stefan Lofven, the Swedish prime minister, told journalists there was “a lot of frustration” about Brexit as he arrived at the summit, Sky’s Greg Heffer reports. Here is Theresa May sitting alongside Donald Tusk at the European council meeting.
Swedish PM Stefan Lovren admits there is "a lot of frustration" over Brexit pic.twitter.com/lqUNZeXAK1 #euco #brexit pic.twitter.com/OhHowz1RNi
The Czech prime minister, Andrej Babis, spoke to reporters as he arrived at the summit. He said he hoped that EU leaders would have a “short discussion” this time and that the meeting would not go on for eight hours, as it did last time the European council was discussing an article 50 extension. Antonio Tajani, the president of the European parliament, is now holding a press briefing after his session with the EU leaders. (See 5.37pm.)
He also said he expected the UK to “get much more time than expected”. He says he has eight points.
Speaking ahead of today’s summit, the French government stressed that another article 50 extension was not automatic. As Reuters reports, Sibeth Ndiaye, a government spokeswoman, said the issued had been discussed at the weekly cabinet meeting at the Elysee palace, before Emmanuel Macron, the president, left for the summit. First, it is important to end the uncertainty around Brexit, he says.
“The no-deal option is obviously the one we would least want ... there’s actually a risk and France is prepared”, she said. Second, he said a no-deal Brexit could be avoided at all costs.
Ndiaye said that France was open to granting an extension to the Brexit deadline but “this is not automatic.” France wanted a “clear and credible prospect” from Britain and commitments not to endanger the EU institutions, she said. Third, he says the parliament wants to see an agreement between the government and the opposition in London as soon as possible.
She refused to say what sort of extension France considered acceptable. Fourth, he says he wants greater clarity about the UK’s future relationship with the EU.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, normally addresses the German parliament before an EU summit. This morning she told German parliamentarians that the UK should be given “a reasonable amount of time” to leave the EU. She said: Fifth, he says the parliament wants more clarity about what is being negotiated in London, and it wants to know if there will be a clear majority of a way ahead.
I am, and the government is, of the view that we should give the two parties a reasonable amount of time. Sixth, he says the parliament wants to know the UK will do if no agreement is reached. Will there be a referendum or a general election, or will article 50 be revoked?
We will deliberate over what kind of extension we want to grant Britain. It could well be that it is a longer extension than has been requested by the British prime minister. Seventh, he says an extension must not be allowed to reopen the withdrawal agreement.
But we will organise this extension such that when Britain has passed the withdrawal agreement, Britain can very quickly thereafter execute the exit in an orderly fashion. Eighth, he says if the UK remains in the EU beyond the European elections, it must take part in those election. But the elections should not be viewed as a game, he says.
So, in summary, the government is still very interested in an orderly exit of Britain from the European Union. He says these are the points he made when he addressed EU leaders earlier.
This is what Theresa May said as she arrived at the summit. She said: He says, asked what would happen to British MEPs after Brexit, he said they would not be able to stay in the parliament.
The purpose of this summit is to agree an extension, which gives us more time to agree a deal to enable us to leave the EU in that smooth and orderly way. The session with the president of the European parliament, Antonio Tajani, is over. Now the European council is starting its session with Theresa May, who will formally make her request for an article 50 extension lasting until 30 June.
What matters, I think, is I have asked for an extension to June 30 but what is important is that any extension enables us to leave at the point at which we ratify a withdrawal agreement. She set out her case in the letter she sent to Donald Tusk, the council president, last week.
So we could leave on May 22 and start to build our brighter future. Exchange with @EP_President finished. Next: PM @theresa_may will exchange views with EU27 leaders. #brexit #euco
She was twice asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg what she would do if the EU insisted on a longer extension, given what she has said about not being willing to delay Brexit beyond 30 June as PM. (See 4.02pm.) Both times May refused to answer the question directly, instead insisting that she was requesting an extension until 30 June and that she was working to ensure that the UK could leave as soon as possible in a smooth and orderly way. Here is the Guardian’s story from the opening of the summit.
Theresa May was asked if she would remain as prime minister if the UK stayed in the EU beyond 30 June because three weeks ago she said that would be unacceptable. This is what she said at PMQs on 20 March, talking about her first request for an article 50 extension. She said: May signals she would accept EU offer of longer Brexit delay
The government intend to bring forward proposals for a third meaningful vote. If that vote is passed, the extension will give the house time to consider the withdrawal agreement bill. If not, the house will have to decide how to proceed. But as prime minister— as prime minister, I am not prepared to delay Brexit any further than 30 June. Here is a clip of Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, speaking to the media when he arrived earlier. He said any article 50 extension would have to be “useful” and “serve a purpose”.
And here is the video. As he arrives at the EU summit, Michel Barnier says "any extension has to be useful and serve a purpose"Get live updates as Theresa May asks EU leaders to delay Brexit until 30 June https://t.co/1qEIEYOoan pic.twitter.com/Z5VZa1WTNW
Here's the longer clip where she says "as prime minister" pic.twitter.com/hUtme5Mat1 This is from Preben Aamann, Donald Tusk’s spokesman. EU leaders have just started the first item on the summit agenda - a meeting with Antonio Tajani, president of the European parliament.
Theresa May is speaking to reporters now. Tusk has just started the special #euco on #Brexit. First an exchange of views with @EP_President Tajani.
Q: Are you embarrassed to be asking for another delay? Xavier Bettel, the prime minister of Luxembourg, proposed “an intelligent extension” as he arrived at the summit. Asked what length extension he favoured, he said:
May says she knows many peope will be “frustrated” that this summit is taking place. I would support an intelligent extension. If it’s long or short, the main point for me is that we have European elections. You can’t be a member and have no elections ...
She says parliament has not approved a deal. But she is talking to the opposition to try to find a solution. If there is a longer extension, there is no lunch for free. So we need to know why, the reason they need a longer extension.
She says she has asked for an extension until 30 June. But the key point is that the UK must be able to leave when it has passed that deal. He also said that he hoped Brexit would be a “friendly divorce”.
Q: You said you would not stay as PM beyond 30 June if the UK were still in. Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, was more reflective than most of the other EU leaders when he spoke to reporters on the way in. Here are the main points he made.
May says she hopes to get the deal through parliament, so that the UK can leave before 22 May (which would mean the UK would not have to go ahead with the European elections). Varadkar said he was “very confident” that the UK would be offered another extension and that there would not be a no-deal this Friday. But what he did not know was how long the extension would last, or what conditions would be attached.
Q: But what will you do if the UK has to stay in? He said the “vast majority” of people in the EU were sympathetic to Britain’s plight. He said:
May says she is working to ensure the UK can leave as soon as possible. I think the vast majority of people here in the European Union appreciate that the United Kingdom is in a difficult position. It does not want to leave without a deal at the moment, it doesn’t want to vote for the deal and of course a lot of people, maybe even half the population, don’t want to leave at all. So I believe the consensus here in Brussels, and across the European Union, will be to give the United Kingdom a little bit more time for the cross-party talks that are happening to conclude. And we can review the situation then in a few months’ time.
May refuses to say whether she will resign as PM if the UK stays in the EU beyond 30 June. He said he wanted to see the UK in a customs union with the EU, and that the EU should agree to let the UK have a say when it negotiates trade deals. He explained:
Theresa May is arriving at the summit now. One thing I would like to be considered, and I know it is under consideration, is the possibility of a customs union being formed between the United Kingdom and the EU. Ultimately the European Union, we are the biggest trading bloc in the world. We trade more than China. We’ve a bigger population than the US. And, in a world of big blocs, it’s in the interests of the UK to be part of one of those blocs. It is also in our interests to have the UK in our bloc. I think we would be generous negotiating that, understanding that the UK could not be a silent partner in such an arrangement. It would have to have a say in decisions being made.
EU leaders are starting to arrive at the summit. Because of the shared border, Ireland would benefit more than any other EU economy from having the UK in the customs union, and so Varadkar’s support for the idea is not surprising. But this may be the first time he has floated the idea of the UK being able to have a say over EU trade policy as a third country. This is something that the Labour party is also proposing, as part of its customs union plan, but until now it has generally been seen as an unrealistic demand in Brussels.
You can watch a live feed of the arrivals on the EU website here. Varadkar said Britain’s adversarial political system was part of the problem. He said that he understood Theresa May’s difficulties, because he does not have a majority in parliament either. He went on:
Good afternoon. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Peter Walker. I’ll be here to cover the EU summit - however late it goes. Perhaps other countries in Europe, including Ireland, have more of a tradition of political parties working together and compromising. The British approach to politics is much more adversarial. I’m not sure, on balance, that’s actually in the UK’s longterm interests.
In Brussels Theresa May will be arriving shortly, according to the BBC. Here are some extracts from what Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said as she arrived at the summit.
PM due on red carpet in Brussels just after half past - she has meeting with Donald Tusk before all the leaders get together later tonight a as familiar routine now, she ll be able to make her case, then leave the room and the others decide Merkel bei EU-Gipfel in Brüssel: "Wir sollten offen und konstruktiv mit der Bitte der britischen Premierministerin um Verlängerung umgehen. Ein geordnetes Ausscheiden Großbritanniens aus der EU ist auch in unserem Interesse." #Brexit
Update: it’s now being reported that Roger Scruton has been sacked. Anyone wondering what Merkel said: "We should be open and constructive with the British Prime minister's Request for An extension. An orderly Withdrawal of Britain from the EU is also in our Interest. " #Brexit https://t.co/5awVIPzWOQ
NEW EXC: Government source confirms James Brokenshire has sacked Roger Scruton
A series of Conservative MPs and others have joined Labour’s call for Roger Scruton to be sacked as chair of a housing commission over comments about George Soros, Muslims and Chinese people.
No brainer. Let’s not take our time on this. @TomTugendhat absolutely right. https://t.co/C0m5tSSLp3
Yesterday, leading Conservatives rightly ask what they can do to reconnect to modern Britain. Today, these bigoted remarks from the man they bizarrely appointed to advise them on housing. How can Downing Street possibly keep Roger Scruton as a government adviser? https://t.co/MCSrUSW456
After Theresa May failed to give him a clear answer at PMQs on whether she had offered a second referendum at any point during Brexit talks with Labour, the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford has called on Jeremy Corbyn to “come clean” about what is being discussed:
If it is the case that the UK government has not discussed a second EU referendum in their talks with the Labour party – then it begs the question, what is Jeremy Corbyn up to? The leader of the opposition has been flaky at least on the question of a second EU referendum – he needs to come clean with the public on what exactly he is bargaining with the Tories, behind closed doors. People deserve to know the truth.
Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon earlier repeated the SNP charge that Scotland has been sidelined by the Brexit process, tweeting:
Tonight, 12 of the 27 EU member states that will decide the UK’s future have populations smaller than or similar in size to Scotland’s. If we become independent we get to sit at that table - enjoying the same solidarity shown to Ireland - instead of being sidelined by Westminster.
At PMQs, May’s riposte to Blackford was quite the opposite – that Scottish independence would have meant taking Scotland out of the EU. But this is at odds with the EU’s Guy Verhofstadt, who has previously stated before a Commons committee that it was a “simple fact” that Scotland could join the EU without the UK.
Reuters has some new Brexit-related quotes from the Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, and it’s probably fair to say they’re on the more gnomic side of things. Asked about a Brexit extension for the UK he said:
It is not certain there will be a delay. And it is not certain what that would mean.
In the Commons now the government is answering an urgent question from Labour on the second phase of the controversial trials of compulsory ID for voters, which will take place at the local elections on 2 May. At last year’s local polls five councils tested such schemes – this year it will be ten.
The idea is criticised by Labour and others for two main reasons. Firstly, the point to the concerns of charities and campaign groups representing people who are older, have disabilities, or from other vulnerable groups, noting that these people are less likely to have the ID and are so more likely to be disenfranchised.
Critics also note that while compulsory ID is meant to combat what is legally called “voter personation” – pretending to be someone else to claim their vote – this is in fact a tiny issue.
Cat Smith, Labour’s shadow minister for voter engagement, told MPs that of 266 cases of electoral fraud reported to police last year, the majority concerned campaign officials, and just eight were of alleged voter personation. “There is actually no evidence of widespread voter personation in the UK,” she said.
For the government, the not-to-be-confused-with-Cat-Smith Cabinet Office minister Chloe Smith said simply giving one’s name at a polling station was “an identity check from the 19th century”, and that last year’s trial showed no reduction in turnout.
Last last year Labour urged the government to sack the philosopher Roger Scruton as chair of a housing commission over comments about the Hungarian philanthropist George Soros which the party said veered into antisemitism.
Those calls have been repeated after, in an interview with the New Statesman, Scruton spoke again about a supposed “Soros empire” in Hungary, and defended the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, over allegations of antisemitism. Scruton said:
The Hungarians were extremely alarmed by the sudden invasion of huge tribes of Muslims from the Middle East.
Scruton also argued that Islamophobia is a propaganda word “invented by the Muslim Brotherhood in order to stop discussion of a major issue”.
He also had this to say about China:
They’re creating robots out of their own people… each Chinese person is a kind of replica of the next one and that is a very frightening thing.
Dawn Butler, Labour’s shadow women and equalities secretary, said Scruton’s comments “invoke the language of white supremacists”, and May should sack him. Butler said:
If she doesn’t, it will be further evidence that she is turning a blind eye to the deep-rooted prejudices and racist views in the Conservative Party, and will again signal that her government endorses these disgusting views.
PMQs - Snap verdict:
The ongoing (if stalled) Brexit talks between the government and Labour have left UK politics in something of a limbo, as shown by PMQs. For a second week in a row, Jeremy Corbyn decided to avoid the subject more or less entirely, instead focusing all his questions on council funding and associated areas of poverty and inequality. You can view this in two ways. Brexit-worriers can point, with perfectly good reason, to Theresa May’s trip to Brussels this afternoon where she will politely ask the EU for a short extension to Brexit and wait in a separate room for them to (in all likelihood) refuse this and impose a longer delay under terms of their choosing. It is both something of a national humiliation and by some measure the most immediate political issue of the day. But on the other hand, the Labour leader could argue that poverty is a pressing crisis, and with local elections across much of England and in Northern Ireland just three weeks away, the point must be made. More pragmatically, if you’re still officially in talks with the government on seeking a Brexit consensus, hammering endlessly at May’s failures over this could be seen as uncooperative.
What was perhaps more surprising was the relative lack of Brexit questions from disgruntled Conservative MPs, of which there are plenty. A series of backbench Brexiters, including Bob Blackman, Theresa Villiers and Daniel Kawczynski asked instead about local issues. It was largely left to the SNP’s Ian Blackford to press May on a possible second referendum. Of course, MPs don’t often get their moment in the spotlight at PMQs, and it’s a good chance to raise a constituency matter. But given the predictions of outright Tory mutiny if a long Brexit delay came to pass, overall this felt unexpected.
Corbyn’s line of attack was comfortable ground for a Labour leader, but his questions were consistent and coherent, and his final peroration rousing:
The evidence is clear; the Tories have abandoned communities across the country, they’ve left towns and cities to fend for themselves after nine years of vindictive, damaging austerity... This government stands for tax cuts for the richest and swingeing cuts for the rest.Will the prime minister now admit that far from tackling the burning injustices she talked about, her government’s cruel and unfair policies have pushed councils to the brink and left those just about managing not being able to manage at all? That is her legacy.
May shot back with a series of (often half-relevant) statistics, but it can be safely chalked up as a Labour win.