British Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday was to meet with the main opposition party leader in a bid to forge a Brexit compromise that avoids a dreaded “no-deal” departure from the EU in eight days.
May decided to tear up her steadfast negotiating strategy and seek Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s support in a moment of peril for her nation and government.
Her divorce deal with the EU has been rejected three times by parliament and patience with London is wearing thin in Brussels as the 46-year partnership nears a potentially chaotic end.
Photo: AFP
The prime minister emerged from an intense seven-hour meeting with her ministers on Tuesday to announce she would seek another “short” Brexit extension at an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels on Wednesday next week.
She crucially added that she was now willing to bend her previous principles and would listen to proposals for much closer post-Brexit relations with the EU than most in her Conservative Party are ready to accept.
“I think there are actually a number of areas that we agree on in relation to Brexit,” May told a rowdy question-and-answer session in parliament. “What we want to do now is to find a way forward that can command the support in this House and deliver on Brexit.”
She specifically did not rule out remaining in a customs union with the EU — a key Labour demand that she has until now dismissed out of hand.
May’s last-minute change of tack has been received cautiously by EU leaders, who would love to see the agonizing split resolved by the time European Parliament elections are held at the end of next month.
However, May’s move enraged the staunchly pro-Brexit wing of her Conservative Party and saw British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales Nigel Adams resign in protest at her “grave error” of judgement.
Fervent EU critic Jacob Rees-Mogg said the prime minister’s decision to seek an alliance with Corbyn meant she was collaborating with a “known Marxist,” but other prominent Brexit-backing ministers were holding their fire.
Corbyn has sought to keep Britain in a European customs union after Brexit enters force.
May’s government has previously rejected this because it would keep Britain from striking its own trade agreements.
British Secretary of State for Exiting the EU Stephen Barclay yesterday said that May was entering her talks with Corbyn “without preconditions.”
Failure by May and Corbyn to reach a compromise would see the two sides try to come up with some mutually acceptable options that would be put up for a vote in parliament, Barclay said.
These would be “binding” on the government — even if parliament came out in favor of the customs union being added to May’s existing deal, he added.
“Ultimately, if that is where the numbers of the House of Commons go, the government would — in order to bring this to a resolution in the national interest — accept what the House voted for,” Barclay said in reference to a customs union.
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