Brexit news: Labour-Tory talks set to implode as Theresa May condemned by opposition, amid MPs' anger over delay
Labour attacks prime minister for refusal to offer 'compromise or change'
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Your support makes all the difference.Theresa May has written to the EU requesting a Brexit extension until 30 June, as top-level talks between Jeremy Corbyn and the prime minister's negotiating teams appear on the brink of collapse.
It comes amid suggestions the bloc will offer the UK a year-long "flexible" delay at next week's emergency summit in Brussels next week.
A plan being drawn up by Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, would allow the UK to leave earlier if parliament approves an exit deal.
Here's how we covered the day's development as they happened
Responding to Theresa May's request for a delayed EU withdrawal date, Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake said: "This is yet another desperate move from a failing prime minister".
"The EU has been clear that we must have a clear purpose for any extension.
"The Conservative government must ask for an extension of Article 50 in order to hold a People's Vote.
"This will be acceptable to the EU and give the people the chance to either vote for her deal or stay in the EU, and help us to get out of this mess once and for all."
Eurosceptic Conservative MP John Redwood tweeted: "No more delays. The government should just get on with leaving the EU on 12 April.
"Offer a free trade agreement and go. The talks with Mr Corbyn cannot result in an outcome that honours Brexit and pleases Leave voters."
Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has said the PM is cutting herself off from the bulk of her voters, which he said was "not very clever politics".
When asked by BBC World At One if he had been rejected by the Prime Minister, he said: "If that's right the Prime Minister is cutting herself off not from me but 70% of Conservative voters, according to opinion polls, and an even higher percentage of Conservative members.
"It doesn't seem to be very clever politics to alienate the bulk of your party to keep happy a few people who have never accepted the referendum result, and have spent their lifetime committed to the European project.
"If that's true it's not that I am being abandoned, it's that the Conservative Party is being abandoned."
Responding to the prime minister's decision to write to the EU requesting another delay to Brexit and extension of the Article 50 negotiating period, the DUP leader Arlene Foster, said it was unsatisfactory, but not unsurprising.
Here is her full statement:
“The Prime Minister’s latest plea to Brussels for an extension to Article 50 is unsurprising but unsatisfactory. It should not have been like this. Exiting the EU has become chaotic because of intransigence in Brussels and ineffectiveness in London.
The United Kingdom fighting European elections almost three years after a clear majority voted to leave the EU sums up the disorganised and slapdash approach taken to negotiations by the Prime Minister.
We want a sensible deal which protects the Union and respects the referendum result but it was foolish strategically in the negotiations to limit the UK’s leverage by removing ‘no deal’ from the table.
The Prime Minister should not waste any extension by subcontracting the UK’s future to Jeremy Corbyn. This time should be used to get a better deal which works for every part of the United Kingdom so the entire nation can leave the European Union together.”
France's European affairs minister Amelie de Montchalin said any extension to the Article 50 process would require the UK to produce a Brexit plan with a "clear and credible political backing".
She told the Guardian that in the absence of such a plan "we would have to acknowledge that the UK chose to leave the EU in a disorderly manner".
After three days, the talks between Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May appear to be on the brink of collapsing.
A spokesperson for the Labour Party has just issued this statement: “We are disappointed that the government has not offered real change or compromise.
“We urge the Prime Minister to come forward with genuine changes to her deal in an effort to find an alternative that can win support in Parliament and bring the country together.”
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