PM May Vows ‘Brexit on Time’ While Inner Circle Talk Up Brexit Delay

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Oliver JJ Lane

As the government’s apparent intention to delay Brexit beyond the legal March 29th date moves beyond rumour to open secret, Britain’s Prime Minister insisted after disastrous talks with the European Union that she would be working to “deliver Brexit, and to deliver it on time.”

The Prime Minister made the remarks as she returned to London Thursday afternoon after meetings with European Union leaders in Brussels, where she expressed the importance of achieving change to the Brexit deal she’d negotiated with the EU. The British Parliament rejected the deal last month and demanded changes to the Irish backstop, but the European Union has refused to accommodate their wishes.

Speaking somewhat euphemistically to a BBC camera crew as she left the European Commission, May described the meetings in which Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker rejected all of her requests out of hand, remarking: “I’ve had a good series of meeting today, we’ve had robust discussions but they’ve been productive.”

Insisting Brexit was going to go to plan and that the United Kingdom would withdraw from the European Union next month, the Prime Minister continued: “I’m clear that I am going to deliver Brexit, I’m going to deliver it on time, that’s what I’m going to do for the British public. I’ll be negotiating hard in the coming days to do just that… my work is to deliver Brexit, and to deliver it on time.”

Yet the Prime Minister’s own words have been repeatedly contradicted in private and public in recent weeks by her own ministers, who say that Brexit day will likely be set back from March 29th, for weeks if not months, as a deal is unlikely to be completed by that time.

While key Brexiteers have campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union without a deal, the Prime Minister — who campaigned to remain in the EU during the referendum — have said the country shouldn’t leave without a deal that could in effect tie the country to the EU indefinitely in several political and economic areas.

That Brexit will be delayed, despite the Prime Minister’s public claims, became clearer when it was claimed there could be a last minute offer by Brussels over the contentious backstop issue, meaning the final deal couldn’t be voted on by Parliament until the end of March, The Guardian reported. With talks running so close to the wire and approaching the legally mandated withdrawal date it was claimed this week the government was planning on requesting a ‘grace period’ of two months to keep the UK in the EU in all but name while the deal was put into place.

Senior Brexiteers including Jacob-Rees Mogg and Boris Johnson have repeatedly warned that delaying Brexit is really a coded way of calling to stop Brexit, however, remarking earlier this month: “…delay is code for stopping and all your listeners should be aware of that.

“If we can’t get any deal we have to leave without a deal.”

Mocking the Prime Minister for her fruitless week, UKIP leader Gerard Batten said Friday: “Mrs May has spent the entire week in pointless meetings which have achieved nothing.

“The Irish border question has been blown out of proportion. If Mrs May and Mr Varadkar were patriots, they would insist that it is a matter between two sovereign nations and demand that the EU cease interfering. Sadly, Mr Varadkar is no longer the Irish Prime Minister, but a regional governor of the European Union and Mrs May doesn’t want the UK to leave the EU.

“Britain is on course to leave the European Union on March 29, 2019. If the Prime Minister wishes to meet the leaders of other nations, she would be better off spending her time building relationships with the United States, Australia, Japan and other countries who have already discussed offering a free trade deal.”

Oliver JJ Lane is the editor of Breitbart London — Follow him on Twitter and Facebook

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