Theresa May told to resign after making 'outrageous' offer to extend Brexit transition for another year
- Theresa May faces a furious backlash from Conservative MPs after offering to extend the Brexit process by up to another year.
- Any extension would cost billions of pounds in EU fees and leave Britain under European rules for almost six years after the referendum result.
- Conservative MPs call on May to abandon her plans and make way for a new leader.
- The prime minister tells the BBC the extension would only be a "matter of months" and insists she hopes it won't be needed.
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - Theresa May is suffering a major backlash from all wings of her party after telling EU leaders she would be willing to extend the Brexit transition period by up to 12 months in an attempt to unlock Brexit negotiations.
The concession, delivered to EU leaders at a dinner in Brussels last night, means that Britain may not fully leave the auspices of the EU until almost six years after the EU referendum, while potentially putting billions of pounds more into EU budgets.
Speaking to the BBC on Thursday, May said she hoped that no extension would be needed but acknowledged that it may be necessary to lengthen the transition period by a "matter of months."
Doing so would lengthen the time available to agree a future trade deal with the EU as well as give more time to prevent a hard border with Northern Ireland. However it would come at both a political and financial cost of up to £10 billion in additional EU fees.
Back in Westminster, MPs from all sides of the Brexit debate reacted angrily to May's announcement.
Staunch Brexiteer, Nadine Dorries, urged MPs to oust May as Conservative party leader and prime minister if she accepts a longer transition period.
"It's time to stand aside and let someone who can negotiate get on with it and deliver. I fully support David Davis as an interim leader. I've done my bit. It's time for my colleagues to do theirs," she tweeted.
Pro-Brexit Conservative Bill Cash said a longer transition would be "completely outrageous" adding that it would force the UK to "pay potentially tens of billions of pounds on top of what's already been agreed" to the EU, while his colleague John Redwood described it as "unacceptable."
Pro-EU Tory MPs reacted negatively, too. One leading Conservative Remainer told BI: "It's daft. It doesn't resolve any of the underlying issues and keeps us in a painful Brexit holding pattern."
Nick Boles MP went further, telling the BBC that May's handling of negotiations is driving MPs who once supported her "to despair" and "losing the confidence of colleagues of all shades of opinion" on Brexit.
Not all Conservative MPs have woken up on Thursday morning furious with the prime minister, however.
One pro-EU MP who sits among the Conservative "rebels" told BI they support the idea in principle. "I'm happy with it if it facilitates a deal and solution to the backstop. If not, what's the point?" they said.
Perhaps crucially for May, a member of the pro-Brexit European Research Group said they wanted to give her time to navigate through "this delicate stage of negotiations" before jumping to conclusions.
"I want to see what the outcome is and the detail," they told BI.
A senior Labour source said, "We've not called for any extension and the only reason it's being discussed is because of the abject failure of the government's negotiating."
They added: "We've always said that the transition should be as short as possible but as long as necessary."
Analysis: May has little choice but to extend.
However, in reality the prime minister had little choice but to ask for an extension. The two year transition period was never going to be long enough to conclude negotiations over a free trade deal with the EU. Such huge international negotiations can take the best part of a decade to conclude and are not usually conducted in anything like the urgent circumstances the UK faces. Failure to successfully conclude such a negotiation within two years would leave Britain in a cliff-edge scenario both economically and politically, with a the prospect of a hard border in Northern Ireland and the break-up of the UK a real and present threat. May's proposal to extend this period is therefore entirely sensible, even if the realisation that such an extension is needed has come very late in the process.
However, an extension does not in and of itself solve May's problem, which is that she has yet to fully decide, let alone agree, what sort of relationship she wants to secure during that additional transition period. Her so-called Chequers plan has already been rejected both by the EU and her own party and the prime minister has not even begun the process of spelling out which of the alternative available options she is willing to accept.
From the start of this process the EU has made it clear that Britain can either have a close Norway-style relationship with the EU, or a much more distant Canada-style agreement. The first option would be by far the least economically damaging but would come at the political cost of accepting EU rules permanently, wile having no say over what those rules are. The second option would produce a big economic hit to the UK, but would allow Britain the kind of "clean" break from the EU that many in her party are demanding. Neither option is a good one for May, but she has to make that fundamental choice.
Until she does so, no amount of extra transition time will do anything but delay the reckoning she faces.
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