Following five hours of talks in Brussels that went on into the early hours of Thursday, Theresa May has been granted a second Brexit extension by EU leaders. The EU27 agreed to give the UK a ‘flexible’ extension until 31 October – also known as Halloween – with a chance to ‘take stock’ and review the decision (and the behaviour of the UK in that period) in June. This appears to be a fudge which helps both May – who asked for an extension just until the end of June – and Emmanuel Macron, who has spoken publicly against a long extension being taken for granted and raised concerns that the British could try and cause the EU problems in any such period.
The length of the six month extension is slightly less than had been expected ahead of the summit – with rumours before suggesting it may be a year long.
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