UK in Secret Talks to Extend Brexit Transition Period

Date: 27 January 2018 - 21:46

News ID: ۴۹۳۷۲

LONDON (Dispatches) -- British officials are in discussions with Brussels about extending the Brexit transition period to almost three years, The Telegraph reported on Saturday.
The official government target for transition is "around two years” but many senior Whitehall officials remain privately concerned about the practicality of such a short transition, given potentially massive changes that would be required by a "hard” Brexit, the paper said.
According to The Telegraph, although it is not formally Government policy, Britain has discreetly begun sounding out senior EU figures over whether transition could be extended amid growing disarray within the cabinet over the ultimate terms of a long-term deal with the EU.
A major new poll has found that Britons favor a second vote by 16% over those who say the original ballot results in 2016 should remain unchallenged.
The poll conducted by ICM in conjunction with The Guardian newspaper found that after removing the quarter of those polled who have no view, 58% want to vote on the exit deal once the final terms of the deal have been negotiated, versus 42% who oppose a second referendum.
If the vote were held today, in the midst of difficult negotiations and a British government riven by backstabbing and conflicting messages from members of Prime Minister Theresa May's troubled Cabinet,  the study found that those wanting to remain would win by 51-49%.
While narrow, it's almost a mirror reversal from the original vote in June 2016 which ended with a stunning upset win by Brexiteers, 52-48%. That said, The Guardian warns that polls before that ballot also indicated the "Remainers" would win and ultimately underestimated the numbers of those who would vote to leave the European Union.
There are a number of factors fueling the apparently changing domestic sentiment, in addition to the government's ham-handed and confusing handling of the negotiations so far. Economic news from the country has been largely and increasingly negative in the months since negotiations finally kicked off on June 19, 2017.