• It is still unclear how, when or if the UK will ever indeed quit the EU
• Germany and France called for more clarity from London
Image: BBC
There is no point in London seeking another short delay in Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, a senior German conservative lawmaker said on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Theresa May announced she would seek another postponement.
"In the current situation of deep institutional deadlock, there is no point in asking for another short delay of #Brexit," Norbert Roettgen, member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling Christian Democrats, said on Twitter.
"#EU should insist on long extension with participation in #EU elections," Roettgen added.
May said on Tuesday she would seek another Brexit delay to agree an EU divorce deal with the opposition Labour leader, a last-ditch gambit to break an impasse over Britain’s departure that enraged many in her party.
Nearly three years since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in a shock referendum result, it is still unclear how, when or if it will ever indeed quit the European club it first joined in 1973.
In a hastily arranged statement from her Downing Street office after spending seven hours chairing cabinet meetings on how to plot a way out of the Brexit maze, May said she was seeking another short extension to Brexit beyond April 12.
Her move offers the prospect of keeping the United Kingdom in a much closer economic relationship with the EU after Brexit - though it could also rip her Conservative Party apart as half her lawmakers want a decisive split from the bloc.
“I am offering to sit down with the leader of the opposition and to try to agree a plan - that we would both stick to - to ensure that we leave the European Union and that we do so with a deal,” she said.
“We will need a further extension of Article 50 (divorce notification), one that is as short as possible and which ends when we pass a deal. We need to be clear what such an extension is for - to ensure we leave in a timely and orderly way.”
Corbyn said he would be “very happy” to meet May and that he would set no limits ahead of the talks, while reiterating that his party aimed to keep a customs union with the EU, access for Britain to its single market and protections for workers.
He added that he would hold a vote of no-confidence in the government in reserve if any eventual accord still failed to achieve majority support in a deeply split British parliament.
Germany and France called for more clarity from London, warning that without a clear sense of what Britain wanted it could be heading towards a disorderly Brexit within days. The EU’s Donald Tusk called for patience with London.