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DPA
BRUSSELS
Eurosceptics in Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative party slammed her idea, floated on Thursday, that a planned 21-month Brexit transition could be extended to allow more time to negotiate arrangements to keep an open Irish border.
"I think it's a mistake and potentially a costly one,"Jacob Rees-Mogg, who chairs a group of about 60 Conservative eurosceptic lawmakers, told the BBC.
May told reporters in Brussels, where she attended a summit of EU leaders, that Britain could be willing to extend the transition past December 2020 to ensure there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.
"A further idea that has emerged is ... to extend the implementation for a matter of months,"she said."But the point is that this is not expected to be used because we are working to ensure we have a future relationship by December 2020."
More outspoken Conservative lawmakers went further than Rees-Mogg, with one, Nadine Dorries, urging May to"stand aside."
"If Theresa May is asking for a longer transition period, she is stalling,"Dorries tweeted."It's time to stand aside and let someone who can negotiate get on with it and deliver,"she said."Surely enough is enough,"tweeted lawmaker Andrea Jenkyns, who had called earlier for May to face a leadership contest.
Jenkyns posted a copy of a letter to May in June from 33 Conservative lawmakers who set out their"red lines"on Brexit."One of them was we would not accept any extension of the transition period,"she wrote on Thursday.
Another Conservative eurosceptic, Nick Boles, told the BBC that May was"losing the confidence of colleagues of all shades of opinion"who are"close to despair"at the state of the Brexit negotiations.
"There is a a fear that both the government and the EU are trying to run out the clock,"Boles told the broadcaster.
Rees-Mogg joined former Brexit secretary David Davis, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson and three other leading eurosceptics in publishing an open letter to May in Thursday's Telegraph newspaper.
May's Brexit plan has"few supporters"in Britain and was"formally rejected by the EU,"the group wrote.
They said Britain should"reset our negotiations"and focus on securing a free-trade agreement, which would"command a majority in parliament, unlike the unpopular Chequers plan."
On Wednesday evening, EU leaders decided that too little progress had been made in negotiations to justify a November summit aimed at inking a divorce deal, an EU source said.
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19/10/2018
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