Twelve days on from the day we were supposed to – and thankfully didn’t – leave the EU, Brexiters are fuming that the UK is being “humiliated” by the ongoing Brexit process. They’ve only got themselves to blame.
Theresa May is heading to Brussels today to see if she and the other 27 EU leaders can agree on a second extension to the Article 50 process. In a letter last week, May requested another short extension until June 30. But Donald Tusk wrote to EU leaders last night urging a longer extension of up to a year, giving the UK the opportunity to cut it short if a deal is reached.
Tusk’s proposal is not set in stone. The new exit date remains blank on official documents circulated yesterday between European leaders, who will need to unanimously agree to the terms tonight. An extension would also be conditional on the UK holding European Parliament elections on May 23, or we would face leaving with no deal on June 1.
Tusk warns that a short extension risks creating a “rolling series of short extensions and emergency summits, creating new cliff-edge dates” and would be “bad for [the EU’s] businesses and citizens”.
But however disruptive a return to no-deal panic every couple of months would be for the EU, it would be far worse for people and businesses in the UK. Nevertheless, good sense and the best interests of the country haven’t stopped Brexiters decrying this extension as a “humiliation”.
The Daily Mail blames “inept MPs” for the UK being stuck in “limbo”; the Express wonders when the UK will “escape EU clutches”. DUP leader Arlene Foster said it is “humiliating that we are having to go and beg so that we can leave”, with several pro-Brexit MPs echoing those sentiments in the Commons yesterday.
Let’s be clear. If the Brexiters feel humiliated, it is they who brought the country to this point. It was the promises they made in 2016 which couldn’t be kept. It was the pressure they put on the prime minister to draw impossible red lines before we even started negotiating – followed by more pressure which led to endless can-kicking and delay. It was their hostile comments comparing the EU to Nazi prison guards and the Soviet Union.
Tusk’s letter is a welcome tonic to such vitriol, when he urges that: “Neither side should be allowed to feel humiliated at any stage in this difficult process.” It is time our country escaped the clutches of the Brexiters’ hate and rage. We must take a long extension and make sure that, for the first time, the public can choose between leaving on specific terms or sticking with the current deal inside the EU. There is a sensible majority in both Parliament and the country ready to support this as a new way forward.