Theresa May ready to extend Brexit transition by ‘matter of months’

Theresa May has confirmed she is ready to consider a delay of “a matter of months” in Britain’s final departure from the EU in order to avoid a hard border in Ireland.

But the Prime Minister said she does not expect any extension of the so-called “transition” to Brexit to be needed, because she still hopes to conclude a deal on the UK’s future trade and security relationship with the EU by its scheduled end-date of December 2020.

Mrs May faced a backlash from Brexiteers after she indicated at a Brussels summit on Wednesday that she was not ruling out the UK remaining in the single market and customs union and subject to EU rules until the end of 2021.

Such a move would delay the final departure almost three years after the official date of Brexit on March 29 2019, and more than five years after the 2016 referendum vote to Leave, potentially costing the UK as much as £10 billion in additional contributions to the EU budgets.

Arriving for the second day of the European Council summit, Mrs May made clear she would accept an extension only as a means to ensure there was no hard border in Ireland if it proved impossible to implement the future partnership by the end of 2020.

“A further idea that has emerged – and it is an idea at this stage – is to create an option to extend the implementation period for a matter of months, and it would only be for a matter of months,” she said.

“But the point is that this is not expected to be used, because we are working to ensure that we have that future relationship in place by the end of December 2020.

“I’m clear that it is possible to do that and that is what we are working for. In those circumstances, there would be no need for any proposal of this sort and I’m clear that I expect the implementation period to end at the end of December 2020.”