Nearly three years after Britons narrowly voted in a referendum to leave the EU, May has been unable to unite her divided cabinet, parliament or nation behind her exit plan.
BRUSSELS - European Union leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday to give Prime Minister Theresa May an offer to delay Brexit beyond 29 March, on condition that she can finally win over her many opponents in parliament next week.
Any delay must be unanimously approved by all the other 27 national EU leaders, increasingly exasperated with Britain’s inability to find a way of a domestic political deadlock that is weighing heavily on the whole bloc. “It is now time for MPs to decide,” May said in a televised statement. “You want us to get on with it. And that is what I am determined to do.”
If Britain fails to ratify the deal in time, and with the legal exit date of 29 March approaching fast, Tusk could then call an emergency summit for late next week. But this would appear to require Britain to take part in European elections in late May that it had never expected to participate in - or present the EU with a painful constitutional conundrum.
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