LONDON -- Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked the European Union late Saturday to delay Britain's exit from the EU, though he made clear that he personally opposes the delay.
Johnson did not sign the letter requesting the delay, but he did sign a second letter accompanying the request. That letter argued that a delay would "damage the interests of the U.K. and our EU partners."
The unsigned letter sent to European Council President Donald Tusk asks that the Brexit deadline be extended from Oct. 31 until the end of January, though the British government said that if it managed to ratify the withdrawal agreement sooner, the extension could be shortened.
Parliament had debated Johnson's new Brexit deal earlier Saturday -- its first Saturday meeting since the Falklands War of 1982. According to legislation passed last month, if Parliament did not approve a deal by the end of the day Saturday, Johnson was required to formally seek a three-month extension beyond the Oct. 31 deadline.
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But the prime minister's hopes that Parliament would ratify his deal were derailed when House of Commons Speaker John Bercow said he would allow a vote on an amendment to withhold support for it.
The amendment was proposed by Oliver Letwin, a member of the House of Commons who was part of Johnson's Conservative Party until the prime minister expelled him in September for voting to block Britain from leaving the EU without a deal. The measure approved Saturday by a 322-306 vote makes support for Johnson's deal conditional on passage of the legislation to implement it, something that could take several days or weeks.
The amendment also gives lawmakers another chance to scrutinize -- and possibly change -- the Brexit departure terms while the legislation is in Parliament.
The leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, said the government would hold a debate Monday on its Brexit-implementing legislation -- effectively a second attempt to secure approval for the deal.
It's unclear whether that would be allowed under House of Commons rules against holding repeated votes on the same question. Bercow said he would make a ruling Monday.
Johnson's allies branded the amendment an attempt to defy the will of the people and gum up Britain's exit trajectory.
Johnson rose to power in July vowing to get Brexit finished, and his government still hopes to have his deal ratified this week and to leave the EU by the end of the month. On Saturday, he called any delay to Britain's departure "pointless, expensive and deeply corrosive of public trust," claiming that people are tired of the Brexit debate -- a phenomenon dubbed "Brexhaustion."
"I'm not daunted or dismayed by this particular result," Johnson said Saturday, vowing that he would "not negotiate" a delay with the EU -- which critics noted was different from asking for one.
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Tusk later announced on Twitter that the British government had notified the EU in writing of its extension request.
"I will now start consulting EU leaders on how to react," Tusk wrote.
EU REACTION
The EU was guarded in its response to Saturday's vote.
"It will be for the U.K. government to inform us about the next steps as soon as possible," EU Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva tweeted.
The office of French President Emmanuel Macron said he spoke to Johnson by phone and insisted on the need for "quick clarification of the British position on the accord." The president's office said Macron indicated to the British prime minister that "a delay would be in no one's interest."
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Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said his country saw the vote as a delay rather than a rejection of the Brexit deal. For EU leaders, avoiding a chaotic, no-deal Brexit should be the "top priority," he said in a tweet.
Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics told his country's LETA news agency that "it is in everyone's interest that the Brexit is arranged in an orderly manner."
"If Johnson asks the European Union to grant an extension, it should be approved, since a modified agreement on the terms of withdrawal has been reached," Rinkevics said.
Johnson, however, warned that the bloc's approval could not be guaranteed.
"There is very little appetite among our friends in the EU for this business to be protracted by one extra day," Johnson said. "They have had three and a half years of this debate."
But Johnson's hopes of getting the deal through Parliament were earlier dealt a blow when his Northern Ireland ally, the Democratic Unionist Party, said it would not back him. The party said Johnson's Brexit package -- which carves out special status for Northern Ireland to keep an open border with EU member Ireland -- is bad for the region and weakens its bonds with the rest of the U.K.
In effect, Johnson's deal would keep Northern Ireland tied to EU regulations, complicating the flow of goods between it and the rest of the U.K. -- England, Scotland and Wales.
To make up for the votes of 10 Democratic Unionist Party lawmakers, Johnson has tried to persuade members of the left-of-center Labor Party to support the deal. Late Friday, the government promised to bolster protections for the environment and workers' rights to allay Labor fears that the Conservative government plans to slash those protections after Brexit.
Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn dismissed the prime minister's promises as inadequate.
"This deal is not good for jobs, damaging for industry, and a threat to our environment and natural world," he said. "Supporting the government this afternoon would merely fire the starting pistol in a race to the bottom in regulations and standards."
Corbyn, a critic of U.S. President Donald Trump, said Johnson's plan to leave the EU would "absolutely, inevitably lead to a Trump trade deal, forcing the U.K. to diverge from the highest standards and expose our families once again to chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-treated beef."
But some Labor lawmakers have indicated that they will support Johnson's deal.
In an opinion column in the Guardian newspaper, Melanie Onn, a Labor lawmaker from Grimsby, a pro-Brexit town populated by "Labor-leavers," implored her colleagues "to use this unique chance to help us move on."
"The risk of letting this final shot at a deal slip through our fingers is too great," she said in a piece she co-wrote with a Conservative Party lawmaker.
THOUSANDS IN STREETS
The vote to delay was welcomed by hundreds of thousands of anti-Brexit demonstrators who marched to Parliament Square in on-and-off rain, demanding a new referendum on whether Britain should leave the EU or remain.
Protesters, many wearing blue berets emblazoned with yellow stars symbolizing the EU flag, poured out of subways and buses for the last-ditch effort.
"Another chance for sanity and perhaps rationality to take over, rather than emotion," filmmaker Jove Lorenty said as he stood outside Parliament. "Never give up until the fat lady sings. No one knows what will happen, but we have hope."
Johnson has steadfastly opposed the idea of another vote, saying that voters have already chosen to leave the EU. But those who took to the streets Saturday said voters were misled before the referendum and that they should be given a chance to vote on a specific Brexit deal informed by years of debate and discussion, rather than the abstract notion of a withdrawal.
Gil Lloyd, 68, was handing out anti-Brexit stickers at the march. He said it was important to participate in the demonstration even if he was not hopeful that a second referendum would take place.
"I am just horrified at the whole thing," he said.
Dorothy Milosevic, 63, traveled from Oxford with her daughter, Angahard Holloway, 34, and her granddaughter, Eleanor, 12.
"The whole thing was sold on a lot of lies," Milosevic said. "Since that morning when we woke up to find that the leavers had won, it has been gloom and despondency."
"It is important that our voice is heard," she added, saying the ones most affected by Brexit would be the people who were too young to vote in the 2016 referendum to leave the EU.
"They simply won't have the same opportunities I was afforded," Milosevic said.
Sarah Spoor, who cares for her two children with disabilities and fears shortages of medicines and medics from the EU if Brexit goes through, choked back tears as she said she was "distraught" at the prospect of Britain's departure.
"It feels like it's coming to the last hurrah before the end," Spoor said. "I am devastated."
Information for this article was contributed by Jill Lawless, Raf Casert, Mike Corder, Gregory Katz and Elaine Ganley of The Associated Press; by William Booth, Karla Adam and Michael Birnbaum of The Washington Post; and by Marc Santora and Anna Schaverien of The New York Times.
A Section on 10/20/2019