Theresa May asks Donald Tusk to delay Brexit until June 30

European Council President Donald Tusk and Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May. Pic/AFP

London: Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday wrote to European Council President Donald Tusk seeking a further extension to the UK's Brexit deadline until June 30 to try and find a solution in Parliament to the current impasse over the terms of Britain's exit from the 28-member bloc.

In her letter, which comes ahead of an EU summit next Wednesday, May told Tusk that while it is "frustrating" that there has been no "orderly" conclusion after her withdrawal agreement was rejected three times by the House of Commons over the controversial Irish backstop clause, the UK remains "strongly committed" to finding a Brexit resolution as soon as possible.

"This impasse cannot be allowed to continue. Therefore, having reluctantly sought an extension to the Article 50 period last month, the government must now do so again," she writes. "The UK proposes that this period should end on June 30, 2019. If the parties are able to ratify before this date, the government proposes that the period should be terminated early," she notes.

This further extension to the Article 50 mechanism, first extended from the March 29 deadline last month, means that the UK may now have to contest the European Parliament elections scheduled for May 23. In her letter, May notes that it is not in the interests of the UK or the EU to go down this route, but accepts it as an inevitable "legal obligation".

She confirms that UK would begin "contingency" preparations to field candidates for European Parliament polls but will keep working towards getting a withdrawal deal ratified by May 22 in order to avert such a move.

'Flextension' from EU?

Meanwhile, reports coming out of Brussels indicate that the EU is preparing to offer the UK so-called "flextension" of around a year until March 2020, with a break clause to end the extension as soon as a withdrawal agreement was in place. The move is intended to give the economic bloc some breathing space from having to delve into repeated short extensions every few weeks.

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