Robert Peston Robert Peston

Cabinet ministers clash over length of Brexit extension

The PM presented choices to the Cabinet for the letter she is expected to write to the EU’s President Donald Tusk requesting a Brexit delay – without nailing down precisely what she will do.

That said, her ministers think she will request a delay until 30 June, predicated on her somehow getting her deal ratified by MPs – with an option of an extension to the end of 2020 in the event she ever concedes her own Brexit plan is definitely an ex-parrot (or dead, for the few of you too young to remember Monty Python).

May’s hope is that if this delay schedule is agreed as a legally binding text then it would have the effect of amending her deal – such that the Speaker could not then block her holding the meaningful vote for a third time.

We’ll see if Speaker Bercow feels that way inclined.

The bigger problem, as I mentioned this

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