Both sides want orderly Brexit but May’s job – and Boris’s future one – may depend on it.
Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson leaves the Cabinet office in London on Tuesday. Photograph: Jack Taylor/Getty
As Theresa May prepares to ask EU leaders to delay Brexit at a summit in Brussels on Thursday, the two sides are in danger of misunderstanding one another’s intentions.
Michel Barnier’s warning on Tuesday that a long extension of Britain’s EU membership “needs to be linked to . . . a new event” was widely understood to refer to a general election or a second referendum.
But in Britain, a long extension is perceived as an EU demand designed to cancel Brexit by means of an election or a referendum.
If the prime minister requests a long extension of up to two years, she could lose a number of Brexiteer cabinet ministers. But although Britain and the EU want an orderly Brexit as soon as possible, a long extension could be the best way of securing it.
Impatient with May and distrustful of her, EU leaders may be tempted to limit any extension to three months unless she promises to seek a fresh consensus around a softer Brexit or to hold a second referendum.
