LONDON: British and European officials are discussing the possibility of extending the formal exit process from the European Union amid fears a Brexit deal will not be approved by March 29, The Daily Telegraph reported, citing unidentified sources.
The Telegraph cited three unidentified EU sources as saying British officials had been “putting out feelers” and “testing the waters” on an extension of Article 50, a part of the Lisbon Treaty which sets out the conditions for leaving the EU.
Prime Minister Theresa May has repeatedly ruled out delaying Brexit, though she has also warned lawmakers that if they reject her deal then Brexit could be derailed or that the United Kingdom could leave without a deal.
“We are leaving the European Union on the 29th of March,” British Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay said when asked about the Telegraph report. “We are not looking to extend.”
When asked directly if he denied the report, Barclay said: “Yes, because I can be very clear that the government’s policy is to leave on March 29.”
He added that extending the Article 50 exit process was not a unilateral decision for the United Kingdom. Extending would require the unanimous agreement of EU heads of state in the European Council.
EU leaders and officials have said over recent weeks that they would be open to extending the Brexit process if Britain asked – though have made clear that, so far, May has stuck to her position that she will seek no delay.
EU officials have been working through the legalities and issues involved in all scenarios, said one senior official close to the Brexit talks, while stressing that there was no indication from leaders that an extension was a preferred option.
Some officials have insisted that any delay could only be of a few weeks and only if there were a clear indication that a deal was about to be concluded.
The future of Brexit remains deeply uncertain as British lawmakers are expected next week to vote down the divorce deal that May struck with the EU in November.
Business chiefs and investors fear leaving the EU without an approved deal would silt up the arteries of trade, spook financial markets and dislocate supply chains for the world’s fifth-largest economy.
Besides leaving without a deal or on the terms of May’s deal, other options include delaying Brexit, calling a parliamentary election or holding another referendum on EU membership.
The ultimate Brexit outcome will shape Britain’s $2.8 trillion economy, have far-reaching consequences for the unity of the United Kingdom and determine whether London can keep its place as one of the top two global financial centers.
May last month pulled a parliamentary vote on her deal, struck after two years of negotiations and designed to maintain close future ties with the bloc, after admitting it would be heavily defeated.
A new parliamentary vote is due on Jan. 15, though it is unclear what May’s next steps would be if the deal is defeated.
Goldman Sachs said its base case was that May’s deal would be defeated at first but a close variant of the deal would eventually be approved by parliament.
May is seeking assurances from the EU on the most controversial part of her deal — an insurance policy to prevent a hard border between EU-member Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has said the EU is willing to give Britain reassurances about the Irish backstop before British lawmakers vote on May’s Brexit deal next week.
“We don’t want to trap the UK into anything – we want to get on to the talks about the future relationship right away,” Varadkar said, the Irish Times reported. “I think it’s those kinds of assurances we are happy to give.”
However, Britain’s former Brexit Secretary David Davis, who opposes May’s deal, said assurances such as proposed by Varadkar would not be enough to convince rebels to support the deal.
UK, European officials discussing possible Brexit delay: report
UK, European officials discussing possible Brexit delay: report
- Prime Minister Theresa May has repeatedly ruled out delaying Brexit
- The Telegraph cited three unidentified EU sources as saying British officials had been ‘putting out feelers’ and ‘testing the waters’ on an extension of Article 50
New Zealand restricts the spread of a reviled killer’s views by hampering his attempts to gain fame
- The 35-year-old told the court this week he didn’t want to plead guilty and made the “irrational” admissions during a “nervous breakdown” induced by his solitary and austere prison conditions
WELLINGTON, New Zealand: In a near-empty courthouse, in front of almost no one, the appeal by New Zealand’s most reviled killer was heard in muted fashion with little mention of the details of the country’s deadliest mass shooting.
Such is New Zealand’s desire to smother the racist motivations of Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 Muslims praying at two mosques in the city of Christchurch in 2019. Tarrant, a self-professed white supremacist, referred to other perpetrators of hate-fueled massacres when he committed his attack and other mass shooters have cited his actions since.
Yet it’s rare to encounter the Australian man’s words in New Zealand, the country where he migrated with a plan to amass semiautomatic guns and carry out the slaughter.
Officials have sought to curb the spread of his views, including through a legal ban on his racist manifesto and a video he livestreamed of the shooting. The effort to prevent public exposure to Tarrant is perhaps most apparent in New Zealand’s courts, where he sought this week to recant his guilty pleas.
A three-judge panel in the Court of Appeal in Wellington heard final arguments Friday by Crown lawyers opposing Tarrant’s application to have his admissions in 2020 to charges of terrorism, murder and attempted murder discarded. He is serving life in prison without a chance of parole, but the case would return to court for a full trial if he is allowed to revoke his guilty pleas.
Opposing lawyers say his appeal has no merit
The 35-year-old told the court this week he didn’t want to plead guilty and made the “irrational” admissions during a “nervous breakdown” induced by his solitary and austere prison conditions. But Crown lawyers opposing his appeal bid said in their response Friday there was no evidence for the claims that he was seriously mentally ill.
Experts had ruled Tarrant was fit to enter pleas, and his former lawyers and prison staff didn’t raise concerns either.
“It’s difficult to see what more could’ve been done,” Crown lawyer Barnaby Hawes told the court. Tarrant, he added, “is an unreliable witness and his narrative should be treated with caution.”
The evidence against Tarrant — including his own livestream of the massacre, in which he filmed his face — was so overwhelming that a guilty verdict was assured if he had fought the charges in a trial, the lawyers said.
“Pleading guilty to charges where his guilt is certain can’t be seen to be irrational,” Hawes said.
The subdued hearing defies the tension over the case
One topic nearly absent from the weeklong hearing was any mention of the hateful motivations Tarrant cited for committing the crimes. Lawyers both supporting and opposing Tarrant’s bid avoided reference to his white supremacist views, and proceedings unfolded in the quiet and stolid way New Zealand court cases usually do.
But there were signs the court sought to limit the public’s exposure to Tarrant, as New Zealand’s justice system has done before. Almost nobody was permitted to view the gunman’s evidence and the appeal bid unfolded in front of nine reporters, nine lawyers, a few court staff, and an empty public gallery.
Tarrant was permitted to watch the proceedings by video conference from Auckland Prison, but his image was not visible in the courtroom except when he gave evidence. Apart from in Christchurch, where the bereaved and wounded survivors watched a livestream of the hearing at the local courthouse, the shooter was invisible.
The approach New Zealand has enacted — in which even news outlets name the shooter as few times as possible in each article — stands at odds with the publicity given to trials for racist mass killers before, including widely covered proceedings for the Norwegian murderer Anders Breivik, whom Tarrant years later cited as an inspiration. Crown lawyers urged the appeal judges Friday to thwart the prospect of the matter returning to court in a lengthy public trial, which would happen if the Australian’s bid to recant his guilt was successful.
“Keeping this case alive is a source of immense distress” to the shooter’s victims, Crown lawyer Madeleine Laracy said. “It doesn’t allow them to heal.”
A swift ruling isn’t expected
The judges’ decision will be released later. New Zealand’s appeals court delivers 90 percent of its judgments within three months of a hearing’s end, according to the Court’s website.
If his bid to revoke his guilty pleas is unsuccessful, Tarrant’s case will return to the appeals court for a later hearing where he will seek a review of his life sentence.
