Brexit deadline, hope for orderly divorce fading fast
The European Union’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said Tuesday that Britain’s exit from the EU without a deal was becoming “day after day more likely.” He issued the warning the morning after the U.K. Parliament again rejected alternatives to Prime Minister Theresa May’s unpopular divorce deal.
Despite the downbeat assessment, Barnier said that “we can still hope to avoid it” through intensive work in London ahead of an April 10 summit. A no-deal Brexit could come as soon two days after that.
He urged the feuding lawmakers in London to back the plan that May spent more than two years negotiating with the EU, calling it the only hope.
“If the U.K. still wants to leave the EU in an orderly manner, this agreement, this treaty is and will be the only one,” he said Tuesday in Brussels.