BRUSSELS — A humbled, even humiliated British Prime Minister Theresa May came to Brussels on Thursday not to dictate the terms of her country’s exit from the European Union, but to plead for — not to demand — a three-month delay.
Ahead of the meeting of E.U. leaders — a nail-biter that was expected to begin midafternoon and could stretch late into the night — attitudes appeared to be hardening against the British leader. Even some E.U. Anglophiles who once held out hope that Britain would change its mind and stay in the union were snapping that the sooner the door slams on the nation’s membership, the better.
It was clear that Britain has not taken back control from Europe, as the hard-line advocates of Brexit envisioned. May arrived not exactly as a supplicant, but as less than an equal.
May asked in a letter Wednesday for a delay of the U.K. departure until the end of June, wanting to use the extra time to pass a divorce agreement. The Europeans, their trust at an end, want her to pass the deal before granting her a delay, potentially leaving a final decision until just hours before Britain would otherwise leave on March 29.
Arriving at what could be her final meeting with Britain as a member of the E.U., May said she was there to deliver Brexit.
“This delay is a matter of personal regret to me,” she told reporters, standing in the glass entrance to the summit building, where Britain’s Union Jack may soon be removed from the row of the 28 E.U. members’ flags. “But a short extension would give Parliament the time to make a final choice that delivers on the result of the referendum.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that E.U. leaders probably would approve May’s request for the three-month extension, as long as the British Parliament approves the divorce agreement.
“In principle, we can comply with that wish if next week we did get a positive vote on the withdrawal documents in the British Parliament,” Merkel told German lawmakers before leaving for Brussels.
Left unsaid was what will happen if the withdrawal deal does not clear Parliament — a real possibility because it already has been defeated twice by historic margins. That would almost certainly force another emergency summit at the end of next week.
In London, May’s allies said she was under “extraordinary pressure.” Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC, “No prime minister in living memory has been tested in the way that she has.”
[Can Brexit be stopped? 800,000 people are trying so hard that Parliament’s website is broken.]
By now, E.U. policymakers have little sympathy for May. They’re fed up with Britain and want it to leave. They no longer hold out hope for a second referendum that could reverse the Brexit decision, preferring to break up and move on.
“We don’t want in the coming months, in the coming years, to be busy with Brexit,” said Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator, who used to post wistful videos on Twitter appealing Britons to abandon Brexit. “We want to be busy with the renewal of the European Union,” he told reporters before the meeting.
The Europeans are keenly aware that the Brexit chaos is being driven by members of May’s Conservative party. She has been unable to win over her own cabinet, which now confronts her daily. She is losing control, or has lost control, of the process. That makes them nervous.
Europeans hope the British leader will ask for a much longer extension and declare her willingness to hold elections in May for the European Parliament. She has ruled them out for fear of riling hard-line Brexit backers in the Conservative party.
Ahead of the summit, European diplomats were unusually open about their fears for the coming days. Many worried that the economic tornado set off by a sudden British departure could hurt ordinary people across Europe. They expected they, too, would be blamed.
“My lack of answer to my mother or to my friends: ‘Why have you contributed to this mess? Why have you done this? Why haven’t you done anything against it?’ ” said one senior E.U. diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss planning ahead of the meetings. “If that is the scenario, it is the most bitter experience.”
Diplomats were concerned about the hours of meetings, which can be confrontational. In meetings with other E.U. leaders, May sticks to her talking points. They view her as focused on preserving her party and her position. They once felt sympathy but she has drawn down those reserves.
May is quickly running out of options back home — with she and lawmakers now pointing the blame for the chaos at each other.
On Wednesday night, May appeared at the lectern at 10 Downing Street to speak to the public. She charged that lawmakers were blocking Brexit. “You are tired of the infighting,” she said. “You are tired of the political games and the arcane procedural rows.”
She added, “I am on your side.”
Lawmakers across the parties shouted that it was May who had bungled Brexit — and that it was her Conservative party and 75 hard-line Brexiteers who have blocked passage of her exit deal.
Some considered the “us vs. Parliament” message of May’s speech threatening — and no way to persuade middle-of-the-road critics to swing behind her deal.
The morning after May’s speech, Commons Speaker John Bercow told Parliament, “None of you is a traitor,” adding: “The sole duty of every member of Parliament is to do what he or she thinks is right.”
Wes Streeting, a Labour lawmaker, said May’s message could whip up anger toward members of Parliament, some of whom already receive death threats.
He called May’s speech “incendiary and irresponsible. If any harm comes to any of us, she will have to accept her share of responsibility.”
A Downing Street spokeswoman told reporters that they “flatly” rejected claims that the prime minister’s statement put lawmakers at risk.
But lawmakers said the rhetoric hurt May’s cause.
“There’s absolutely no chance she is going to win over MPs in sufficient numbers after that statement,” Lisa Nandy, another Labour lawmaker, told the ITV broadcaster. “It was an attack on liberal democracy itself. . . . I will not support a government that takes such a reckless, dangerous approach.”
Sam Gyimah, a Conservative party member of Parliament, told the BBC that May’s new approach was a “low blow.” He said that he would not be blackmailed by and that the deal is still a poor one.
Some of the 48 percent of people who voted to remain in the European Union in the June 2016 Brexit referendum were growing increasingly nervous about what might happen over the next few days.
An online public petition page calling on May to cancel Brexit attracted more than half a million signatures in mere hours — and then crashed. The British Parliament’s petitions website went down Thursday morning because of a surge in traffic.
Booth reported from London. Karla Adam in London and Quentin Ariès in Brussels contributed to this report.
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