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Courtesy of the Times.
If Theresa May’s deal is defeated again tomorrow the next issue is what Article 50 extension should the UK seek and the EU grant? Mrs May wants only a short two or three-month extension. She wants to recreate in May or June the same cliff edge that March 29 is now, in the hope that MPs will succumb to “meaningful vote three”. However, our EU partners also need to agree. Their reaction should be determined by two factors: resolving the Brexit crisis and respecting British democracy. The way to do both is to offer Britain an extension of up to 21 months, which would last until the end of the planned transition period.
Emmanuel Macron and Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, have started talking about an extension for a set period longer than three months. This is unviable if Mrs May rejects it, and she would do so because a longer extension would make her short-term “my deal or no deal” strategy untenable. With the extension rejected, the EU could not then credibly seek to force the UK to stay for longer than we wish to do so. Setting a long maximum extension period, with it possible for Britain to leave at any point short of its termination, is a wholly different proposition. It doesn’t matter if Mrs May says she definitely doesn’t want more than two or three months. The EU response would be: “Fine, if you can agree the present deal by the end of June, but since we are not convinced on past form that you can do so, we are giving you a longer period too, to avoid further crisis negotiations this summer.”
It is in the EU’s interests to do this. The EU 27 need to avoid a catastrophic no-deal almost as much as the UK, more so in the case of Ireland given the border situation. What of the European parliament elections scheduled for late May? Under EU law these would have to be held in Britain if we are still in the EU by the start of July. So the “up to 21 months” solution needs to include EU agreement to a short treaty protocol cancelling European parliament elections for any country engaged in Article 50 negotiations. Since the EU has as little interest as Britain in holding European elections here while we are in limbo, this is eminently doable. An up to 21 months extension almost certainly eliminates no-deal and attempts by May to resuscitate “my deal or no deal”. It makes it likely that the ultimate resolution will be for a referendum to stop Brexit. The European Commission won’t like this long game, but Varadkar, Macron, Tusk and Merkel all have a vital interest in the smooth demise of Brexit. Between them they can sort this.
Lord Adonis is a former Labour cabinet minister
