Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Theresa May asks EU for a further Article 50 extension until 30th June… Theresa May has written to the European Union to request a further delay to Brexit until 30 June. The UK is currently due to leave the EU on 12 April and, as yet, no withdrawal deal has been approved by MPs.The government has been in talks with the Labour Party to try and find a compromise to put to the Commons. But shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said the Tory negotiating team had offered no changes to Mrs May’s original deal. The PM said from the outset she wanted to keep her withdrawal agreement as part of any plan, but was willing to discuss the UK’s future relationship with the EU – addressed in the deal’s political declaration. – BBC News So, what will Brussels say? It’s unlikely to be an enthusiastic yes. Donald Tusk has already said that Brussels is not interested in granting another short extension – instead recommending an extension to March 2020 with an option to exit early if the deal is passed before. EU leaders don’t want to have to keep having Article 50 meetings every month or so if May still can’t pass her deal. Theresa May knows this but with ministers threatening to quit if she goes for a long extension, today’s request is more focussed on buying herself time with her Cabinet and party than hitting the right notes with the EU. – Katy Balls for The Spectator Here’s what will happen next after May asks for more time – Sky News How I secured my place in the First Circle of Brexit Hell by coining the term ‘flextension’ – Peter Foster for The Telegraph (£) If we want Brexit, Theresa May must go – Telegraph editorial (£) > Read on BrexitCentral: Full text of Theresa May’s letter to Donald Tusk …as EU’s Donald Tusk suggests ‘12-month flexible delay’… European Council President Donald Tusk is proposing to offer the UK a 12-month “flexible” extension to its Brexit date, according to a senior EU source. His plan, which would need to be agreed by EU leaders at a summit next week, would allow the UK to leave sooner if Parliament ratifies a deal. The UK’s Conservatives and Labour Party are set to continue Brexit talks later. Theresa May has written to Mr Tusk with the UK’s request for a further delay to Brexit until 30 June. The UK is due to leave the EU on 12 April and, as yet, no withdrawal deal has been approved by MPs. Downing Street said “technical” talks between Labour and the Conservatives on Thursday had been “productive” and would continue on Friday. – BBC News Why the Prime Minister has grounds to hope the EU will grant her request for an extension – Syed Kamall MEP for ConservativeHome …but Macron, Dutch PM and German minister all say May needs to answer ‘key questions’ or face No Deal Emmanuel Macron is leading European efforts to stop Britain from getting any new delay to Brexit without a ‘clear and credible’ plan for leaving, saying we should otherwise be left to quit ‘in a disorderly manner’. Paris today attacked both Theresa May’s plea to postpone leaving until June 30 and a separate plan from European Council president Donald Tusk to keep us in the trade bloc for a year. A French diplomatic source said Mr Tusk’s idea for a ‘flextension’ until March 29 2020 was ‘a clumsy trial balloon’ ahead of an emergency summit next Wednesday. And European affairs minister Amélie de Montchalin warned that Theresa May’s desire for a short extension of Article 50 with a break mechanism to leave sooner if a Withdrawal Agreement passed through Parliament was not likely to succeed. – Daily Mail Germany: UK PM needs to come up with a Brexit plan, stop playing for time – Reuters Italy’s Di Maio: Give England the time it needs for Brexit – Reuters Longer Brexit extension might make more sense – Irish PM – Reuters Government offering ‘no change’ to deal, say Labour after latest talks… The government has not proposed any changes to the PM’s Brexit deal during cross-party talks, says shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer. Meetings have been taking place between Tory and Labour politicians to find a proposal to put to the Commons before an emergency EU summit next week. But Sir Keir said the government was not “countenancing any change” on the wording of the existing plan. A Downing Street spokesman said: “We have made serious proposals.” The government was “prepared to pursue changes to the political declaration”, a plan for the future relationship with the EU, to “deliver a deal that is acceptable to both sides”, the spokesman said. – BBC News I am not sure whether it’s me or ministers who are the more naive. Because last night I was persuaded by Cabinet sources a breakthrough was nigh in talks to resolve the Brexit deadlock between the Government and Labour.But the talks are already on the verge of collapse – with each side making charges it is the other side which is negotiating in poor faith.Labour sources say the memorandum sent by the PM to Jeremy Corbyn this afternoon shows Theresa May has not shown the flexibility her colleagues expected.- Robert Peston for The Spectator Labour ‘disappointed’ at lack of ‘genuine changes’ to PM’s deal – Sky News Theresa May urged to leave with no deal as her talks with Jeremy Corbyn “made no progress” – Express UK government ready to hold more Brexit talks with opposition Labour this weekend – Reuters Inviting Labour into Downing Street has proved costly, and benefited only Corbyn – Mark Wallace for Conservative Home Theresa May’s Brexit talks with Corbyn run into trouble – James Forsyth for The Spectator Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn would need to split both of their parties to achieve a Brexit deal — united they fall – James Forsyth for The Sun The dark clouds of Brexit and Corbyn represent a perfect storm from which the Tory Party may not recover – Matthew Goodwin for the Telegraph (£) …as Tom Watson urges second referendum to ‘solve national crisis’ A public vote on any Brexit deal could “solve the national crisis” in the UK, Labour’s deputy leader has said. Tom Watson said he was a “reluctant convert” to a confirmatory ballot but if MPs “failed” to do their job, the public could make the final call. Talks between Labour and the Tories on finding a way forward on Brexit are entering their third day. He suggested Labour MPs would find it “a bit difficult” to accept any outcome which excluded a referendum option. He also revealed that Labour has opened nominations for European elections to make sure the party was prepared if the polls do go ahead on 23 May. – BBC News Jacob Rees-Mogg says UK should be ‘as difficult as possible’ with EU if Brexit is delayed Conservative MP and Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg called on Friday on the U.K. government to be “as difficult as possible” with the EU on a range of issues including the long-term budget if Brexit is delayed for an extended period. “If a long extension leaves us stuck in the EU we should be as difficult as possible,” Rees-Mogg tweeted. “We could veto any increase in the budget, obstruct the putative EU army and block Mr Macron’s integrationist schemes,” he added. – Politico UK passports now being issued without ‘European Union’ label British passports are being issued without the words ‘European Union’ on the cover, despite the delay to Brexit. The new burgundy passports were introduced from 30 March, the day after the UK was supposed to leave the EU, but some people may still receive the old version until stocks run out. Dark blue passports resembling the pre-EU British design are due to be issued from the end of the year. – BBC News Delaying Brexit for European elections will pose ‘existential threat’ to the Tories, MPs warn Theresa May… Theresa May has been warned that holding European elections will pose an “existential threat” to the Conservative Party after she asked the EU to delay Brexit until June 30. The Prime Minister has told Tories to prepare to take part in the poll on May 23, prompting a furious response from activists who may now refuse to campaign for candidates. Senior MPs said the Conservatives would suffer “catastrophic” damage at both the local elections on May 2 and the EU elections if they went ahead, which would threaten the “viability” of the party itself. Stephen Barclay, the Brexit Secretary, told Mrs May in a heated Downing Street meeting “we need to get out” as he implored her to avoid EU elections, but his pleas were ignored. – Telegraph (£) Eurosceptic peers warn MPs of violent uprising if they refuse to honour referendum – Telegraph (£) …as frustrated Leavers prepare Brexit backlash Erdington has been a Labour heartland for decades. Not since before the Second World War has a Conservative represented this deprived Birmingham constituency. Yet Jack Dromey, the sitting MP who has a majority of more than 7,000, risks a ferocious backlash from Leave voters for supporting a soft Brexit. His constituents voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU, with 63 per cent in favour, but Mr Dromey this week voted for a customs union, a second referendum and a “Norway plus” Brexit. With Brexit delayed, there is anger among Mr Dromey’s constituents. “We voted to leave, we should have been out by now. What is the point in having a democracy if we are not listened to?” asked Rowan Mackenzie-Stephenson, 59, whose household supplies shop is closing down. “I’d take no deal, get out and get on with it,” she said. “We can’t be any worse than we are now.” – The Times (£) Chris Heaton-Harris: Forget the ‘end is nigh’ scaremongering – Britain is officially ready for no deal Brexit On Wednesday I resigned from Government. My role as a minister in the Brexit department, helping to coordinate our preparations for if the UK needed to leave the EU without a negotiated deal, had been made irrelevant by decisions in Government. Our preparations for this eventuality were very well advanced. Hundreds of civil servants had been working for over two years to ensure we would be ready; but parliamentarians and others who are doing everything they can to stop Brexit needed to maintain a narrative that leaving without a deal would be a “disaster” for jobs and our economy. Most of these “end of the world is nigh’” stories originate in the myth that Calais and Eurotunnel will be blocked. – Chris Heaton-Harris MP for the Telegraph (£) Harry Western: The EU is terrified of a WTO Brexit – the UK should seize its chance to force a good deal The EU is terrified of a WTO-based Brexit. And with good reason. Currently, UK membership of the EU customs union and single market makes the UK a massive and lucrative captive market for EU producers – the EU’s goods trade surplus with the UK is £95 billion. Under a WTO Brexit, that would be likely to change rapidly. The ‘no deal’ tariff schedule the UK government recently published would be likely to see a considerable diversion of UK trade away from EU producers, as EU firms lose their preferential access to UK consumers. – Harry Western for Briefings for Brexit Charles Moore: The EU Empire is on the verge of victory, as Britain makes itself irrelevant Empires have emperors. In this respect, the EU is a dual monarchy. Although it is also a bureaucracy – which is where, before lunch at least, Jean-Claude Juncker comes in – it really defers to whoever is Chancellor of Germany or President of France. Since the insane decision to create the euro, thus subjugating the zone to German economic preferences, the Germans have won. As far as Brexit goes, then, we need briefly to consider Emmanuel Macron. He is an arrogant man, and very unpleasant about Britain, but he is only a little emperor. One longs for him to exercise his residual power to refuse us any extension, but he won’t. If he has a role in our drama, it is to be the hard cop. The soft cop matters much more. – Charles Moore for the Telegraph (£) Stephen Daisley: Brexit is exposing Nicola Sturgeon’s hypocrisy Two months before polling day and in the middle of Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games, Nicola Sturgeon warned: ‘We have set down a robust and common sense position.There are 160,000 EU nationals from other states living in Scotland, including some in the Commonwealth Games city of Glasgow. If Scotland was outside Europe, they would lose the right to stay here.’ Reminded of this ugly tactic, Scottish nationalists will insist it’s completely different from the Tories failing to confirm the settled status of EU migrants post-Brexit but, after a few circuits of logic hurdles, it becomes clear that the germane difference is that Sturgeon was pursuing A Good Policy and Theresa May A Bad Policy. – Stephen Daisley for The Spectator Shanker Singham: There was no plan to leave the Customs Union I voted Remain, but I now think there is a great opportunity for us in leaving the EU. The main reason is that the vote happened in a global context of extreme potential headwinds for the global economy. Christina Lagarde, head of the IMF, now talks of two per cent growth as the new normal in developed countries. There has been a massive increase in protectionism and regulatory barriers recently. There hasn’t been a concluded global trade round for nearly a quarter of a century – that’s unprecedented; you could usually rely on this happening every 10 years. EU regulation is also moving in a more anti-competitive direction and the ability of the UK to break that trend has diminished within the EU. Britain is not a third-rate power in decline. We are the fifth biggest economy in the world, second in the world for services, ninth for manufacturing, and we have a lot of soft power. – Shanker Singham interview for Spiked Brexit in Brief Talking to Bill Cash persuaded me to vote to support the Cooper-Letwin Bill – Daniel Finkelstein for The Times (£) The Great British Brexit Showstopper may yet be to come – Caroline Bell for Briefings for Brexit Leave voting areas need our support, not a second referendum – Anonymous MP for The Times (£) Let arrogant Remain ultras have their vote – Janice Turner for The Times (£) Something is rotten at the heart of the Tory party – and it isn’t just Brexit – Mark Wallace for the Telegraph (£) Oliver Letwin is becoming the Marxist hard Left’s useful idiot – Esther McVey MP for the Telegraph (£) Labour’s faux progressives will stop at nothing to reverse Brexit – Tom Harris for the Telegraph (£) May and the EU: Absolute power corrupts absolutely – Rolf Norfolk for Conservative Woman Dangerous forces are vandalising our constitution, aided and abetted by a rogue Speaker – Juliet Samuel for the Telegraph (£) Europe’s big election mess – David M. Herszenhorn and Maïa De La Baume for Politico Brussels invites Britain to behold the horror of No Meal Brexit – Telegraph (£)