Brexit hangs in the balance: Corbyn's Labour says no breakthrough yet

[April 08, 2019]  By Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Piper

LONDON (Reuters) - The opposition Labour Party said on Monday that Prime Minister Theresa May had so far failed to convince it to support a divorce deal, two days before a European Union emergency summit where she will try to delay Britain's April 12 departure.

Brexit has already been delayed once but May is asking the EU for yet more time as she courts veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn, whose Labour Party wants to keep Britain more closely tied to the EU after Brexit.

Nearly three years after the United Kingdom shocked the world by voting by 52 percent to 48 to leave the EU, May warned that Brexit might never happen but said that she would do everything possible to make sure that it did.

Labour's Brexit point man, Keir Starmer, said May's government had so far not changed its position on Brexit and so no way forward had been agreed.

"Both us and the government have approached this in the spirit of trying to find a way forward. We haven't found that yet. We will continue to do that," Starmer said.

"The ball is the government's court," he added. "We need to see what they come back with and, when they do, we will take a collective position on that."

What Starmer termed exchanges of communication had taken place over the weekend and, while no talks were scheduled for Monday, he said things could develop. He said an agenda had been circulated that included the idea of a confirmatory referendum.

May's spokesman said she hoped further formal talks could take place later on Monday, and that she wanted to reach an agreement as soon as possible.

The spokeswoman said May wanted Britain to have an independent trading policy - something hard to reconcile with Labour's demand for membership of a customs union - and that both sides would need to compromise.

The 2016 referendum revealed a United Kingdom divided over much more than EU membership, and has sparked impassioned debate about everything from secession and immigration to capitalism, empire and what it means to be British.

Yet, more than a week after Britain was originally supposed to have left the EU, nothing is resolved as the weakest leader in a generation battles to get a divorce deal ratified by a deadlocked parliament.

Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves his home, as Brexit uncertainty continues, in London, Britain April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Simon Dawson

BREXIT DELAY?

EU leaders, fatigued by the serpentine Brexit crisis, must decide on Wednesday whether to grant May, who has asked for a postponement until June 30, a further delay. The decision can be vetoed by any of the other 27 member states.

Without an extension, the United Kingdom is due to leave the EU at 2200 GMT on Friday, without a deal to cushion the economic shock.

While the EU is not expected to trigger such a potentially disorderly no-deal exit, diplomats said all options were on the table - from refusing a delay to granting May's request or pushing for a longer postponement.

May needs to convince EU leaders that she has a viable plan; she will meet Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin and President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday to discuss Brexit.

The EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, was on Monday meeting Prime Minister Leo Varadkar in Ireland, which depends heavily on Britain as both a market and a transit point and would be hit hardest by a no-deal Brexit.

As the crisis grinds on, one survey suggested that voters wanted a strong leader willing to force through broad political reform.

Research by the Hansard Society found that 54 percent of voters wanted a strong leader willing to break the rules, while 72 percent said the political system needed "quite a lot" or "a great deal" of improvement.
 

Confidence in the system is at the lowest level in the 15-year history of the survey, lower even than after a 2009 scandal when lawmakers were shown to have charged taxpayers expenses for everything from an ornamental duck house to cleaning out a moat.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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