France's Macron says Britain would have to justify delaying Brexit

PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that the European Union would only agree to extend the Brexit deadline beyond March 29 if Britain justified a delay with a clear objective and new choices.

The United Kingdom is due to leave in 30 days but Prime Minister Theresa May has so far failed to get parliament to ratify the deal she agreed in November, so on Tuesday she opened up the possibility of a delay until the end of June.

European leaders want to avoid a disorderly no-deal Brexit that would send shockwaves through the $16 trillion economy of the EU 27, though they are also exasperated at Britain’s labyrinthine divorce crisis and want to move on.

“If the British need more time, we would support an extension request if it was justified by new choices from the British,” Macron told a joint news briefing with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel in Paris.

“But we would in no way accept an extension without a clear view on the objective pursued,” he added. “As our negotiator Michel Barnier said, we don’t need more time, we need decisions.”

French officials have said Paris would agree to delay Brexit only if that came with a credible solution, for example if Britain called an election, held a second referendum, or presented a new plan that was acceptable to all sides but needed more time to be finalised.

Merkel said she was “totally on the same line” as Macron but appeared more willing to show flexibility.

“If Britain needs some more time, we won’t refuse but we are striving for an orderly solution i.e. an orderly exit of Britain from the European Union,” she said. “We regret this step but it is reality and we must now find a good solution.”

DEAL OR DELAY?

After months of saying that Britain must leave the EU on time on March 29, either with her deal or with no deal at all, May made major shifts on Tuesday under pressure from lawmakers who accused her of running out the clock.

She will hold a vote within two weeks on her deal, and said that if it fails she will offer lawmakers chances to vote on whether to leave with no deal, or to ask the EU for a delay.

Those concessions took much of the heat out of a series of votes in parliament planned for Wednesday, in which opposition lawmakers and rebels in May’s Conservative Party had planned to demand more control to rule out leaving with no deal.

British lawmakers were still due to vote on other possible measures later on Wednesday, such as an opposition Labour Party proposal for a permanent customs union with the EU. Labour, which until now has formally backed Brexit, has said this week that if its motion fails it will swing behind calls for a new referendum, a major shift by opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn.

That could give opponents of exiting the EU their biggest chance to stop it since the 2016 vote in which 52 percent of Britons backed leaving, although there is still no majority in parliament for a new referendum.

The big shifts on Brexit by both May and Corbyn this week come amid deepening divisions within both major parties as the Brexit deadline approaches.

Eight former Labour lawmakers and three Conservatives quit their parties last week to set up a new anti-Brexit movement in parliament, the biggest such schism in British politics for decades. Lawmakers in both parties have threatened further defections.

May says the vote on her deal will take place by March 12 at the latest, and if there is a delay to Brexit it will not be beyond the end of June and almost certainly a one-off.

When asked in parliament about Macron’s comments, May’s de-facto deputy, David Lidington, said that EU member states have made clear they would want to know the purpose of any extension of Brexit.

“So I don’t think that anything that President Macron said today comes as a shock to us,” Lidington said.

“They want this issue sorted out,” he told parliament of his perception of European leaders’ attitude toward Brexit.

European officials see two main delay scenarios: a technical extension to clear up the paperwork and legalities if a deal is approved by Britain in March, or a much longer – and politically delicate – delay if May loses.

The bloc will vote to elect a new European Parliament on May 23-26, which would sit from July 2, a date that is shaping up to be the EU’s limit for any extension, since any further delay would affect plans to hold the vote without Britain.