British Prime Minister Theresa May will request a short delay to Brexit in a letter to the European Union on Wednesday, Sky cited an unidentified senior government source as saying.

With a wordy speech invoking a 17th-century precedent, and a cold stare aimed at stunned ministers, the grandiose Speaker of Britain's parliament cast Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit strategy into chaos.

Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday will send a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk seeking an extension of her country's departure from the European Union beyond a March 29 deadline, BBC News' political editor reported in a tweet late on Tuesday.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton accused Britain's political establishment on Tuesday of failing to implement the result of the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union.

The European Union's markets watchdog published guidance on Tuesday identifying which shares investors in the bloc could no longer trade in London if there is a hard Brexit next week.

Prime Minister Theresa May will ask the European Union to delay Brexit by at least three months after her plan to hold a third vote on her fraught divorce deal was thrown into disarray by a surprise intervention from the speaker of parliament.

Any long Brexit delay would pile on economic and political costs for the European Union, the bloc's chief negotiator Michel Barnier said on Tuesday, stressing that these would need to be weighed up carefully against potential benefits.

France is ready to veto any British request for a Brexit delay that either kicks the can down the road without offering a way out of its deadlock or imperils European Union institutions, an official in President Emmanuel Macron's office said on Tuesday.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, held cross-party talks with four MPs who support a close economic relationship with the European Union and they pledged to work together to break the Brexit impasse, a Labour spokesman said on Tuesday.

Britain must present a detailed plan how to push the agreement on its withdrawal from the European Union through parliament to get the EU's approval for an extension of the March 29th membership deadline, Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said.