Leading Eurosceptics are lobbying right-of-centre governments in Europe to see if they would veto a British extension of article 50 and so ensure the UK drops out of the EU at the end of the month without a deal.
In theory, only one country is required to wield its veto for any British request to be rejected.
It is highly unlikely this lobbying will succeed as the governments in countries such as Hungary, Italy and Poland have other more important battles to fight with the EU. But the lobbying underlines the precariousness of the British position.
Leave.EU touted its connections with Eurosceptic forces in Europe on Wednesday, tweeting: “The British establishment would do well to remember the Eurosceptic scene is a close-knit group across the continent and on the rise – some are now in power! If our politicians betray Brexit and vote for delay, Matteo Salvini can defend the 17.4 million and veto!” Salvini is Italy’s deputy prime minister and a Eurosceptic.
It is claimed Leave.EU’s Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore visited Veneto last week to discuss with senior figures in Salvini’s party, the League, what attitude the Italian government might take towards article 50.
Banks said the claim was “codswallop” and a conspiracy peddled by the Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr.
Speaking in the European parliament, the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage told MEPs: “The solution to avoid hordes of new Brexit party MEPs being elected is for the European council to veto any extension of article 50 and ensure we leave on 29 March.”
Three Conservative MPs flew to Warsaw last Thursday to meet members of the Polish governing party to discuss the Brexit crisis. They met Anna Maria Anders, the Polish minister for international dialogue in the prime minister’s office and a senator. The British MPs included two former cabinet ministers, Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson.
Anders told the Guardian: “I am definitely against deferment and another referendum. We have had two years to get this together. I do not see an extension is going to make any difference. We want to see some agreement because a delay is a case for concern.”
Referring to the extensive British internal debate, she said: “It’s good to have these discussions, but I get the feeling they are going nowhere. Sometimes you just have to make a decision, and if someone disagrees, that is the price. You cannot please everyone.
“I am also against a second referendum. If there is a small majority to remain, there is no progress, and if there is a majority to leave, what was the point?”
The overall view of the Polish government – traditionally seen as one of the UK’s closest allies in Europe – is likely to be to support an extension, especially if there is pressure on France and Germany to make such a move. Poland has many quarrels with the EU, some dramatised for domestic consumption, and would not wish to be seen as the cause of a no-deal Brexit that would damage the entire European economy.
But some in Europe do not share Farage’s view that a prolonged Brexit impasse will benefit the populist right in the European parliament elections this spring. In his personal manifesto for the European elections last week, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, repeatedly used the British travails over Brexit as a stick with which to beat what he described as the European right’s unobtainable promises and lies.
Anders revealed that the Polish government was still in talks with Salvini and the League about the possibility of forming a political alliance after the European elections.
Anders met Salvini a fortnight ago, and she said he told her that his reported links with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, were exaggerated. She said her own party was strongly pro-Nato and critical of Russia.
She also said she would not take seriously the ideas of anyone who like Macron had only about 20% support in their own country.