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EU ambassadors met today to discuss options for an extension. Germany & Netherlands were open to Tusk idea of year-long delay. But France, Spain & Belgium were 'very hard' & argued May hasn't done enough to justify one. They floated 2 week delay to prepare markets for crash out.
Balance of probabilities still favours 'flextension' of somewhere between 8-12 months when EU27 leaders get together next Weds. But France in particular will demand very concrete political commitments from UK that it won't use a delay to interfere in decisions about EU's future.
Idea of long extension is to pack UK 'off to garden shed' for few months to get head straight & sort out internal political crisis in hope May (or another PM) will be able to come back at end of year with better idea of what it wants. Also takes Brexit off EU agenda for a while.
But France has strong reservations about importing UK's political problems into heart of EU if there's long delay. Its ambassador stressed 'political & legal risk' because 'they might paralyse our institutions', according to diplomatic source. I.e what Rees-Mogg tweeted today.
