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May spent her weekend frantically calling European leaders and backbench MPs to beg them for help
The EU is preparing to charge Britain billions of dollars and impose a number of other punitive conditions as its price for agreeing to a Brexit delay if Theresa May is forced to ask for an extension this week.
Member states are “hardening” their attitudes towards a delay and will demand “legal and financial conditions” including a multi-billion pound increase to the $68 billion divorce payment, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
Sources said Britain would be expected to pay another pounds 13.5 billion per year, with a delay of even three months adding billions to the bill.
With no signs of a breakthrough in the negotiations, Parliament is expected to reject the deal for a second time tomorrow (Tuesday), before voting later in the week to extend Article 50.
EU sources suggested last night that the only way for May to win the vote was if she found her “inner Churchill” and reached out across the political divide for cross-party support.
The Prime Minister faces a possible no-confidence vote tabled by Labour if she loses heavily tomorrow, and a leadership challenge as Tory MPs warn her position would become increasingly untenable if she lost control of Brexit.
Boris Johnson, the runaway favourite among Tory members to succeed May, accused the EU of treating Britain with “contempt” and expecting it to sign up to a “Carthaginian” deal. He urges his fellow MPs to vote against both the deal and a delay, to force the EU to come to the table when its leaders meet on March 21.
In this Thursday, May 25, 2017 file photo British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, left, and Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May arrive for a meeting during the NATO summit of heads of state and government, at the NATO headquarters, in Brussels. Thierry Charlier/Pool / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Writing in The Telegraph, he says MPs must vote to keep no-deal on the table as “it is vital that we do nothing to further weaken the UK position”.
May spent her weekend frantically calling European leaders and backbench MPs to beg them for help.
She invited Eurosceptics to Chequers on Saturday and spent Sunday calling other Brexiteers, asking what would make them vote for her deal.
However, Michel Barnier, the EU chief negotiator, spent Sunday watching the Six Nations rugby, while Donald Tusk, the European Council president, posted a picture of himself with his “English friend” — an English Springer Spaniel — in what was interpreted as an attempt to goad May.
With hopes of a deal running out, attention in Brussels has already turned to the logistics of extending Article 50, and the price that can be extracted from Britain for agreeing to it.
All 27 member states must agree to an extension but EU sources said while Britain was likely to be granted a delay, it would come with strings attached.
Theresay May talks with European Council President Donald Tusk during the first Arab-European Summit on February 24, 2019 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Stefan Rousseau/Pool/Getty Images
One diplomatic source told The Telegraph: “Lines are hardening against extension… Anything more than a few weeks will come with legal and financial conditions attached.”
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has hinted that he would push for the UK to stay in a customs union, saying that he would only accept an extension if it accepted a “new choice”.
Another EU diplomat said May’s only hope now was to reach out across the Commons to find a deal that could command cross-party support — a veiled reference to a customs union.
The source said: “The EU27 are leaning towards a shorter extension to avoid … Britain [being] involved in European elections in June. Unless things move that would mean the UK Government being at the table with a stable majority, which means a coalition that can deliver and reach across the [party] divide. She needs to summon her inner Churchill and reach across.”
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