5 June 2019updated 07 Jun 2021 1:33pm

Brexit will be delayed – and MPs now have six more months to tell us what they don’t want

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May (R) listens to European Council President Donald Tusk during a special meeting of the European Council to endorse the draft Brexit withdrawal agreement and to approve the draft political declaration on future EU-UK relations on November 25, 2018 in Brussels. (Photo by OLIVIER HOSLET / POOL / AFP) (Photo credit should read OLIVIER HOSLET/AFP/Getty Images)

The United Kingdom will remain a member of the European Union until at least 31 October, after an accord was reached by the other 27 member states to accept Theresa May’s request for more time.

But it’s not clear what the British Parliament will do with the time. The central difficulty is that Conservative MPs don’t want any of the following: a Brexit soft enough to secure a majority in this parliament; a second referendum that could lead to Brexit being undone; or Brexit on the terms negotiated by Theresa May – and there is no majority to be found in Parliament for a no deal Brexit.

But Tory MPs also don’t want the one thing that could, potentially at least, end the deadlock between the governing party and Parliament: a general election.

Without the fear that they must chose an option in order to avoid the cliff-edge, it is difficult to see what will force MPs to pick which one of the options they dislike least. As it stands, the UK will still be a member of the EU on 31 October, more than three years after the country voted to leave. Absent another election or a referendum, it may well still be an EU member four years after, too.