THE Speaker’s recent statement seems to make it impossible for the Government to try to get their EU deal through Parliament again (Echo, March 19).

If nothing is done, we will crash out of the EU on March 29 with no proper plans in place; surely no responsible Government can allow this to happen? What we desperately need now is more time.

However, I don’t think the EU will give us a short Article 50 extension, as they will rightly see no point in yet more negotiations on the present deal, and the Government could not guarantee Parliament would approve a planned no-deal Brexit (even if they wanted one, and the EU was prepared to help).

Thus I think we will have to ask for a long extension, but I suspect the EU will want to know how we plan to use this time. The best answer I can see is in order to hold a legally-binding referendum, which will allow voters to finally decide what to do about Brexit.

The Government would also need time to pass the necessary legislation to implement this decision.

I’m fairly sure this would be acceptable to the EU.

Or we could simply abandon Brexit for now. It should be simple to repeal the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, but if necessary I’m sure the EU would be delighted to give us a short extension.

Alan Jordan, Middridge