No deal Brexit beckons
- Britain heads towards no-deal if parliament votes down deal: Macron
- Support surges for petition seeking to revoke Brexit
French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday warned Prime Minister Theresa May that Britain would face a disorderly departure from the European Union if she fails to get parliamentary approval for her deal on the third attempt next week.
Just eight days before Britain is due to leave the EU, May was making a last-ditch plea to the bloc's 27 other leaders in Brussels to hand her a Brexit delay until June 30, a request she said was "a matter of personal regret" and one she firmly pinned on her country's deeply divided parliament.
EU leaders are expected to grant her two extra months to organise a smooth exit -- but only on the condition that the British leader can get her deal through parliament, something even members of her own government increasingly doubt.
"We must be clear, to ourselves, our British friends and our people," Macron said on arrival at the 24-hour summit.
"Firstly, we've been negotiating the withdrawal agreement for two years. It cannot be renegotiated. Secondly, in the event of another no vote in Britain, we will be heading towards a no deal. Everyone knows it."
European leaders must not let the turmoil surrounding Brexit drag on, the French leader said.
EU diplomats said May's request for a delay to June 30 was likely to be met by an EU preference for Britain to have completed formalities and begin a status-quo transition to departure before Europeans elect a new parliament from May 23.
May's chances hang in the balance, with positions hardening after a chaotic week when the parliament's speaker questioned whether she could even bring her deal to a third vote.
The DUP, which gives May's government a majority in parliament, said it was no closer to backing her agreement, the party's Brexit spokesman said yesterday, while eurosceptics also say they could never approve something they say would trap Britain in the EU's orbit indefinitely.
With parliament and political parties divided, deadlock could mean Britain lurching by default into legal limbo outside the EU at 11 pm (2300 GMT) on March 29.
If the deal is saved, EU leaders would sign off remotely next week on an extension of the deadline to mid-May, or perhaps the end of June, before the new EU parliament convenes.
But if May fails next week, leaders expect to return for an emergency council at which Britain could either be given another year or more to sort out its crisis - if it can convince them it has a plan to do that - or be told it is leaving on Friday.
Meanwhile, an online petition asking the British government to revoke Brexit briefly crashed yesterday after a surge in support saw it garner more than 600,000 signatures in less than 24 hours.
Comments