UK agrees to EU request for more time to ratify Brexit deal

The delay by a month brings more uncertainty to an already fragile start to a new economic relationship.

The U.K. agreed to allow the European Union to delay ratification of their post-Brexit trade deal by a month, injecting more uncertainty into the already fragile start to the two sides’ new relationship. In a letter to the European Commission on Tuesday, Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove said that he expects that the EU “should be able to satisfy its internal requirements” by the end of April and the U.K. “would therefore not be asked to further extend the period of provisional application.” The agreement on trade, security and fisheries was signed on Dec. 24, only days before Britain left the EU’s single market and customs union. The Commission applied the deal provisionally to give the European Parliament — which has the power to veto the entire accord — until the end of February to scrutinize it.