The Article 50 Brexit delay will only be a short one, Theresa May says
Source: CNN
(CNN) Theresa May will not request a long delay to Brexit from European leaders, Downing Street has said.
The embattled British Prime Minister will only ask for a short extension to the process of leaving the European Union, a source at 10 Downing Street told CNN.
Just last week the Prime Minister told the House of Commons that a longer extension would be needed if lawmakers failed to vote in favor of her Brexit deal. Downing Street believed that the prospect of a long delay would force rebel lawmakers into line. But British media reported that Brexiteer members of her Cabinet were furious at the suggestion May could ask the EU for a delay of up to two years. There was a mutinous mood at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, according to multiple reports.
Downing Street then indicated that May had backed down. "The PM won't be asking for a long extension," the source said. "There is a case for giving Parliament a bit more time to agree a way forward, but the people of this country have been waiting nearly three years now. "They are fed up with parliament's failure to take a decision and the PM shares their frustration."
An emergency debate on Brexit was called for by an opposition Labour MPs after it emerged May was seeking the short delay, according to the UK's Press Association. It's up to the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, to decide on whether to allow the debate. This comes a day before May will meet EU leaders in Brussels where she will discuss possible extension options to Article 50 -- the legal process for Britain leaving the bloc -- after Parliament twice rejected her deal by substantial margins. MPs last week voted in favor of an extension to the withdrawal process, given the unlikelihood of agreeing a deal before the March 29 deadline. If an extension is agreed, the UK will avoid crashing out of the EU without a deal.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/20/uk/article-50-brexit-extension-theresa-may-intl-gbr/index.html
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The EU refuses to do any further negotiation and a divided Parliament refuses to yield on the current plan. And certainly a hard exit would be devastating to the economy because there really aren't any backstop re-negotiated trade deals (that we are aware of) in the works. If the Tories do want to replace her, they might actually have such deals in hiding but who knows? 
Just a lot of brinkmanship going on here (and the only odd positive is the fact that their currency is not tied to the Euro if they are forced into a hard exit). 
thanks to Cambridge Analytica.
(sigh)
If there is a silver lining to this situation, it is that many, many things have been laid bare that we only suspected before. And that does give us the opportunity to make huge, systemic changes.
I keep hoping. 
I think centuries long rival France is wanting to do that! 
Bercow already told her not to bring the same plan back to them for a 3rd vote (unless it was via a substantially different motion), yet it seems her delay is based on bringing it just the same. 
