Spoiler
The European Union is poised to tell Theresa May that she must hold a second referendum or soften Brexit in return for them granting a lengthy delay to Britain’s departure date.
The Times understands that the prime minister has been told by senior EU officials and other European leaders that conditions for an extension to the Article 50 exit process would include the option of a second vote on EU membership.
Mrs May is expected to ask a summit of EU leaders next week for a delay to Brexit. Unless the House of Commons has ratified the withdrawal agreement by then momentum is growing across the EU for a lengthy postponement to give Britain a “long reflection period”.
Donald Tusk, president of the European council, who will chair next Thursday’s talks between EU leaders, is pushing for a long extension so that Britain can either reverse or soften Brexit. “During my consultations ahead of the European council, I will appeal to the EU 27 to be open to a long extension if the UK finds it necessary to rethink its Brexit strategy and build consensus around it,” he said.
Mr Tusk is a strong supporter of a second referendum and he will tell EU leaders that there is opportunity during an extension of at least a year for Britain’s political course to be changed.
Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, said yesterday that Britain needed a “long reflection period” lasting “21 months, to the end of 2020, or whatever the period would be”.
He added: “We’re essentially looking for, we will look for, a much longer extension to allow Britain to rethink its approach to Brexit.”
His choice of words is highly significant because the term “period of reflection” was used after Ireland voted against the EU’s Lisbon treaty in 2008 to build pressure for a second referendum, which was held to reverse it just over a year later. It was also used after the French and Dutch referendums, reheating the EU’s constitutional treaty in 2005 before in effect reversing the result with the almost identical Lisbon treaty two years later.
Mrs May has been told of the conditions in private talks over recent days with other European leaders and senior EU figures, including
Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president.
The EU will insist that any extension must be used to decide between the options of a second referendum, cancelling Brexit or dropping the government’s red lines on exiting the single market and customs union.
Mr Tusk lamented last month that the chance of a second referendum had receded, and other EU officials now regard another referendum as a possibility after the government’s massive defeat on Tuesday.
Both the Council of the EU, which represents governments, and the commission have written off the withdrawal agreement while the government pursues the same Brexit strategy.
The conditions are highly unlikely to be publicly set out in any agreement on a delay to Brexit. However, there will be strings attached to a delay that will be billed as a more neutral “period of reflection” that, as Mr Coveney put it, would “allow Britain to rethink Brexit”.
One diplomat said: “It will be space for Britain to reflect. It will not be the EU ordering a second referendum. That will not work, it has to be a British choice.”
Despite the prospect of a long extension, Britain could leave the European Union within months, senior government sources have said. The prime minister is trying to force MPs to choose between her deal and a “long” extension, which could last up to two years. If MPs passed a revised Brexit deal during the extension period in the coming months with the consent of Brussels it may be possible to leave early.
“There are lots of ifs and buts and everything would have to be agreed but it could be possible to leave before the agreed revised exit date,” a source said.
Further building the case for a long extension, Eleanor Sharpston, QC, the UK advocate-general at the European Court of Justice, has set out the case for not holding European elections in Britain on May 23.
Ms Sharpston, 64, said that there was a legal basis for Britain to appoint MEPs based on the composition of the Commons, without holding elections for a temporary period, as Croatia did when it joined the EU in 2013 towards the end of a parliamentary term.
Other options, she said, could be keeping the existing terms of MEPs, among whose number is Nigel Frottage, or even sending MPs from Westminster as in the old European Economic Community parliamentary assembly before direct elections to the EU parliament in 1979.
“If the political will to agree a longer Article 50 treaty on European Union extension is there, a legal mechanism can be found to accommodate that desire and ‘deal with’ the issue of the European parliament elections,” Ms Sharpston said on Twitter.
Most of those on the EU side think that British elections to the European parliament could not be delayed by more than two months beyond the assembly’s first sitting in July, with polls being held in time for the process to choose a successor to Mr Juncker in October.
Germany is most open to a delay and France is the most resistant unless Britain agrees to certain strings being attached.
What happens next?
March 18/19Third “meaningful vote” on whether or not MPs back Theresa May’s Brexit deal
March 20 If MPs approve Mrs May’s deal by this date, the government said that there could be a short delay until June 30
March 21-22 Summit of EU leaders
Week starting March 25 Possible extension votes
March 29 Day that Britain is still in law supposed to leave the EU if nothing else has been agreed
May 23 European parliament elections begin
Poll