Prime Minister Theresa May has announced that she will seek a longer extension to Article 50 and will attempt to negotiate a compromised Brexit deal with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in an attempt to “break the logjam” in Parliament over Brexit.
Speaking inside Downing Street following marathon 8-hour Cabinet meeting, Theresa May said that she would seek “a further extension of Article 50” and that Parliament would “need to be clear what such an extension is for.“
May also stated that she would be “offering to sit down with the Leader of the Opposition […] to agree a plan that we can both stick to“.
The Prime Minister also declared that any plan agreed between the two parties “would have to agree the current withdrawal agreement“, adding:
“If we cannot agree on a single unified approach, then we woud instead agree a number of options for the future relationship that we could put to the House in a serie of votes to determine which course to pursue.”
“The government stands ready to abide by the decision of the House.”
Theresa May also strongly indicated that No Deal was no longer an option, and stated that any withdrawal agreement would need to be agreed and passed by May 22nd before EU elections.
The Prime Minister’s speech has already come in for significant criticism, with some accusing her of attempting to drag Labour into the argument in an attempt to pin some of the blame for any potential disagreement on them.
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1113128300656934912
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1113128842380668928
This is @theresa_may and Cabinet trying to shift to Labour responsibility for a no-deal Brexit on 12 April. PM says it is no deal unless Labour negotiates responsibly
— Robert Peston (@Peston) April 2, 2019
Furthermore, at no point did Theresa May state that her latest plan had the backing of her Cabinet – an omission which indicates potentially significant repurcussions amongst her government Ministers.
It is also widely expected that Mrs May’s softening of her stance, in addition to her extreme reluctance to accept a No Deal exit, will go down extremely badly with hard Brexiteers within her own party.
“This is the worst prime minister we’ve ever had”. Reaction of Tory Brexiter MP fearing this is a pivot to soft customs-union Brexit
— Robert Peston (@Peston) April 2, 2019
It is also understood that Jeremy Corbyn was not informed of the Prime Ministers offer of talks before her statement.
Labour source tells me the PM's statement was the first Jeremy Corbyn heard of the offer to sit down for talks.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) April 2, 2019
