EU Gives U.K. Two Extensions for Sealing Brexit Deal

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March 24, 2019

The European Union has decided to give the United Kingdom a little more time to figure out (if or) how Brexit will proceed.

Brexit

The other 27 member countries of the EU voted to give the UK a brief extension, not the monthslong one that UK Prime Minister Theresa May had requested. May had asked for a six-month extension. The EU handed down its own ironclad response: May 22, provided that the UK Parliament approves an agreement for how it will all happen, April 12 if no deal is reached.

Parliament has already voted not go forward without a deal but has also twice voted down deals negotiated by May and the EU. The original deadline, after the UK invoked Article 50 of the EU Constitution and signaled its intention to leave, was March 29. That date is still in place as far as approval of a deal goes. If Parliament approves a deal by that date, then the EU will allow the UK until May 22 to nail down the details of how Brexit happens.

Brexit referendum march

One option open to Parliament is to rescind the invocation of Article 50. That would mean that the UK would remain in the EU. That looked to be the preference of many of the hundreds of thousands of people who gathered for a march in London's Parliament Square on the weekend. Many of the marchers demanded a new referendum on Brexit.

Britain's exiting the EU–or Brexit, as it has come to be known–is the result of a 2016 referendum that resulted in a razor-thin majority's voting to leave the EU. The U.K. has been a member of the EU since 1973.

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