Johnson sends Tusk extension request

“I will not negotiate a delay with the EU and neither does the law compel me to do so,” -Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson sent European Council President Donald Tusk a letter requesting an extension of the Oct. 31 Brexit deadline late on Saturday night, Tusk announced on Twitter.

Johnson had told Tusk he would be sending the letter when they spoke by phone at 8:15 P.M. Brussels time.

The extension request has just arrived. I will now start consulting EU leaders on how to react. #Brexit

— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) October 19, 2019

Johnson had hoped that Saturday would see recalcitrant MPs support the divorce deal he agreed with EU leaders this week and finally end three years of political deadlock since the 2016 referendum vote to leave the bloc.

Instead, MPs voted 322 to 306 in favour of an amendment that turned Johnson’s planned finale on its head by leaving the prime minister exposed to a humiliating obligation to ask the EU for a delay until the end of January 2020, and increasing the opportunity for opponents to frustrate Brexit.

Johnson has been promising that he will take the country out of the bloc on Oct. 31, come what may, and after the amendment passed, he struck a defiant tone.

“I will not negotiate a delay with the EU and neither does the law compel me to do so,” he told parliament. “I will tell our friends and colleagues in the EU exactly what I have told everyone else in the last 88 days that I have served as prime minister: that further delay would be bad for this country, bad for the European Union and bad for democracy.”

However, he appeared to acknowledge in a letter sent later to lawmakers that he would ask for a Brexit extension – as called by for an earlier law passed in parliament.”It is quite possible that our friends in the European Union will reject parliament’s request for further delay (or not take a decision quickly),” Johnson wrote.

European Council President Donald Tusk said he had spoken to Johnson and an EU official said Johnson had confirmed in that call that the letter asking the EU for an extension would indeed be sent. The deadline for the letter to be sent was 2300 GMT on Saturday.

“Tusk will on that basis start consulting EU leaders on how to react. This may take a few days,” the official said.

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