The EU has no appetite for another Brexit delay

Now that I’ve had the opportunity to review the extraordinary and historic events that took place here in Brussels and talk to people involved in the talks, I have a new take on what happened and why.

The big drivers for why the EU 27 leaders came up with their new formula for determining when and whether we Brexit are:

• EU leaders had – and have – zero confidence that the Prime Minister will win her meaningful vote next week, and they quite rationally decided it was unreasonable for them to determine in conditions of extreme pressure in seven days whether we we are falling out at 11pm on the Friday.
• Many EU leaders are utterly fed up with how our Brexit mess is infecting their domestic political debates and derailing their attempts to forge an agenda to address the huge challenges faced by the EU. ‘They increasingly see Brexit as poisoning the EU and European nations’ said a participant in the talks.