EU leaders have agreed in principle to extend Brexit until 31 January 2020 - meaning the UK will not leave as planned on Thursday.
EU Council President Donald Tusk said it was a "flextension" - meaning the UK could leave before the deadline if a deal was approved by Parliament.
It comes as MPs prepare to vote on proposals by Boris Johnson for an early general election on 12 December.
The SNP and Lib Dems have also proposed an election on 9 December.
The government has not ruled out getting behind that proposed date, if, as expected, it fails to get its preferred date through the Commons later.
The UK was due to leave the EU on Thursday, but Mr Johnson was required to request an extension after Parliament failed to agree a Brexit deal.
Boris Johnson had repeatedly said the UK would leave on 31 October deadline "do or die", but the law - known as the Benn act - also requires him to accept the offer.
Mr Tusk will now seek the UK's formal agreement to the decision - before formalising the extension through a written procedure among the 27 other EU nations, which he hopes to conclude by Tuesday or Wednesday.
The BBC's assistant Political Editor Norman Smith said the decision saw a no-deal Brexit taken off the table - which will increase the pressure on MPs to decide on a general election.
MPs are due to vote on the prime minister's election call after 17:00 GMT.
Mr Johnson said if Parliament agreed to the vote, he would bring back his Withdrawal Agreement Bill for MPs to scrutinise.
The bill passed its first hurdle last week after MPs backed it at the second reading by a majority of 30.
But minutes later they voted against a timetable that would see it pass through Parliament in just three days, so the PM "paused" its progress.
MPs are due to vote later on Boris Johnson's call to have an election on 12 December.
The prime minister says he will restart moves to get his Brexit deal bill into law if the motion is passed.
But he looks unlikely to get the support of the two-thirds of MPs he needs by law to agree to an election, with opposition parties against it.
The UK is due to leave the EU on Thursday, but the bloc is considering an extension to that date.
They agreed to delay Brexit in principle last week, but EU ambassadors are meeting again this morning, with BBC Brussels reporter Adam Fleming saying there were "high hopes" of a final decision.
A draft text of an agreement for the 27 ambassadors includes multiple possible dates for Brexit - 30 November, 31 December or 31 January - and an option for the UK to leave earlier if and when a deal is signed off.
There will also be a commitment that the Withdrawal Agreement on the UK's exit from the EU cannot be renegotiated in future.
Adam Fleming said if the ambassadors and the UK agreed, the extension process could completed in writing without the leaders of each of the EU states needing to be present.
Vote for a vote
In Westminster, MPs are due to vote on the prime minister's election call after 17:00 GMT.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said his party is not prepared to support it until a no-deal Brexit is ruled out, with his party's MPs expected to abstain in the vote.
The SNP has also said it will block the government's election attempt.
But the party has joined forces with the Liberal Democrats to push for an election on 9 December - provided the EU grants a Brexit extension until 31 January.
They have proposed a bill which would tweak the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 - the law which sets the time-frame for elections - and enable a poll to take place with only a simple majority of MPs voting for it, rather than two-thirds of MPs.
Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson said she wanted to stop Mr Johnson from "ramming through his Brexit bill".
She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme setting the date in law would also remove any "wriggle room" the PM had around his own proposals.
Ms Swinson said she had written to the prime minister but was yet to get a response.
Asked about the Lib Dem/SNP proposal, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said the government would "always look at every single option".
But he told BBC Breakfast: "The best way is to vote for the motion tonight. This Parliament is totally broken. Let the people decide the next step forward."
Labour's Lucy Powell also criticised the SNP/Lib Dem plan.
"What we've seen from the Liberal Democrats and the SNP is trying to shape the terms of that election in a way that would favour them the most. It's pure playing of politics," she told BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour.
MPs have already twice rejected a call from the PM to hold a general election.
Mr Johnson has sent a letter to the EU requesting a Brexit delay until 31 January. He was compelled to do so by a law passed by MPs - known as the Benn Act.
Before this, the prime minister repeatedly insisted the UK would leave the EU on 31 October, with or without a deal.
The decision by the Lib Dems and SNP is basically to abandon a "People's Vote" in this Parliament and to campaign now for a general election.
That is the only way, they believe, that you can change the maths in Parliament to make a People's Vote more likely.
It points to the break-up of the so-called Rebel Alliance, which has hung together through thick and thin and has stymied Mr Johnson.
The Lib Dems and the SNP appear to be moving in on one direction - and Labour and the Greens in the other.
The EU is due to meet on Monday to consider a Brexit extension until 31 January, with an option for the UK to leave earlier if a deal is ratified.
A draft text to be shown to ambassadors from the 27 member countries includes multiple possible dates for Brexit: 30 November, 31 December or 31 January.
There will also be a commitment that the Withdrawal Agreement cannot be renegotiated in future.
Unless the extension is approved, the UK will leave the EU on Thursday.
Under the proposed legal decision to extend the Brexit process, the EU would also retain the right to meet without the UK to consider future business during the extension.
The EU has so far agreed to an extension after Boris Johnson was forced by Parliament to request it, but has not specified the new deadline date.
If EU members approve the request for a three-month extension, Mr Johnson would have to accept it, under the terms of the law passed by MPs to prevent a no-deal Brexit.
Any extension to the Article 50 process is technically flexible, meaning that it can come to an end as soon as a deal is approved by both parties.
A short delay could be seen as risking a no-deal Brexit by those who support remaining in the EU, while a long delay could be seen by Brexit supporters as attempting to prevent the UK from leaving.
As part of the extension, the EU is expected to say the UK has "an obligation to suggest a candidate" to represent it on the EU Commission.
Mr Johnson has previously said "under no circumstances" will he nominate anyone to take over from Julian King when the new commission takes office on 1 November, arguing that officials need to focus on the UK's future outside the EU.
'Look at all options'
The decision from Brussels is set to come as the UK debates how to use any potential extension to break the Parliamentary deadlock.
The prime minister will put forward a motion calling for a 12 December election on Monday, which needs the support of two-thirds of MPs to succeed.
But the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party want to see a bill introduced that enshrines a 9 December election in law, as long as the Brexit deadline is extended to 31 January.
Conservative MP James Cleverly dismissed this plan as a "gimmick" and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called the move a "stunt".
But a Downing Street source said the government would "look at all options" if its own election motion failed.
Unlike the government plan, the Lib Dem-SNP bill would only require a simple majority to pass.
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s government denied a newspaper report on Saturday that it will seek to weaken workers’ rights after Britain leaves the European Union, with one minister describing the idea as “completely mad”.
FILE PHOTO: Conservative leadership candidate Boris Johnson poses for a photograph with workers at the Wight Shipyard Company at Venture Quay during a visit to the Isle of Wight, Britain June 27, 2019. Dominic Lipinski/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
The Financial Times published extracts of leaked documents from the government’s Brexit ministry which state that a so-called “level playing field” commitment to the EU “leaves room for interpretation”.
The EU is concerned Britain may try to loosen regulations, including workers’ rights, after it leaves the bloc and says it is likely to impose trade barriers unless rules remain similar, to avoid what it views as unfair competition.
In the shorter term, Britain’s government also needs support from at least some rebel members of the opposition Labour Party to pass Brexit legislation, which has said their votes will hinge on the preservation of workers’ existing protections.
In the Brexit transition deal Prime Minister Boris Johnson has negotiated with Brussels, the political declaration which sets out the framework for trade talks says “the future relationship must ensure open and fair competition, encompassing robust commitments to ensure a level playing field”.
According to the FT, Brexit ministry officials wrote that the UK’s and EU’s “interpretation of these commitments will be very different”, and that the text represented a “much more open starting point for future relationship negotiations”.
Government ministers rejected the FT’s suggestion that this meant British labor standards would diverge significantly from those in the EU.
“This story is not correct. UK will maintain (the) highest standards of workers’ rights and environmental standards when we leave the EU,” business minister Andrea Leadsom said on Twitter in reply to the FT report.
However Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said the FT report showed members of parliament would be unwise to trust government promises on workers’ rights.
“These documents confirm our worst fears. Boris Johnson’s Brexit is a blueprint for a deregulated economy, which will see vital rights and protections torn up,” he said.
Junior business minister Kwasi Kwarteng said it was not in the government’s interest to seek to loosen employment rules.
“I think this is completely mad, actually,” he said when asked about the FT report by the BBC. “Nineteen Labour MPs have come with us and voted for a second reading (of Brexit legislation). It would not make any sense at all to dilute workers’ rights.”
Under the Brexit deal negotiated by Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May - which parliament rejected three times - the United Kingdom as a whole would have been bound by some “level playing field” commitments as part of a customs agreement.
According to Johnson’s deal, only Northern Ireland will be obliged to continue to follow rules similar to those in the EU, and the rest of the UK can diverge if it is willing to accept greater barriers to trade with the EU.
Most economists think preserving trade ties with the EU should be a priority after Brexit, and see few obvious gains from significantly different regulation.
Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Alison Williams
An hour's drive inland from the French coast, a dozen Vietnamese men nurse tea over a smoking campfire, as they wait for a phone call from the man they call "the boss". An Afghan man, they say, who opens trailers in the lorry-park nearby and shuts them inside.
Duc paid €30,000 ($33,200; £25,000) for a prepaid journey from Vietnam to London - via Russia, Poland, Germany and France. It was organised, he says, by a Vietnamese contact back home.
"I have some Vietnamese friends in UK, who will help me find jobs when I get there," he told me. "These friends help me get on lorries or container trucks to go across the border."
Security is much less tight in the nearby lorry park than around the ports further north. But few people here have managed to get past the border controls.
We were told there is a two-tier system in operation here; that those who pay more for their passage to Britain don't have to chance their luck in the lorries outside, but use this base as a transit camp before being escorted on the final leg of their journey.
A Vietnamese smuggler, interviewed by a French paper several years ago, reportedly described three levels of package. The top level allowed migrants to ride in the lorry cab and sleep in hotels. The lowest level was nicknamed "air", or more cynically "CO2" - a reference to the lack of air in some trailers.
A local volunteer in the camp told us that they'd seen Vietnamese and British men visiting migrants here in a Mercedes. And that once migrants arrived in the UK, some went to work in cannabis farms, after which all communication stopped.
Duc tells me he needs a job in the UK to pay back the loan for his journey.
"We can do anything," he says, "construction work, nail bars, restaurants or other jobs."
A report by one of France's biggest charities described smugglers telling Vietnamese migrants that refrigerated lorries gave them more chance of avoiding detection, and giving each of them an aluminium bag to put over their heads while passing through scanners at the border.
No one here had heard about the 39 people found dead this week.
Police officers drive away a lorry, with black plastic visible at the rear, in which 39 bodies were discovered in Essex. BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday said the 39 bodies that were discovered in a refrigerated lorry in Essex have yet to be identified as Chinese at this time.
"The British police expressed that the identity of the victims is still being verified. It is not yet possible to confirm whether they were Chinese nationals," spokesperson Hua Chunying said.
"We hope that the British side will confirm the identity of the victims as soon as possible, find out the truth, and severely punish the criminals involved in the case."
The spokesperson added that consular officials from the Embassy in China are working closely with UK authorities and that British police are "still in the process of verification."
When asked by CNN about the possibility of Chinese citizens being illegally trafficked, the question was rebuffed by the spokesperson.
"Chinese people have gained an unprecedented level of gratefulness, safeness, fulfillment and happiness over the past, over the past seven decades," Hua replied.
"If you look around the globe you will find more and more foreign friends wishing to work, study and holiday in China even more they hope live in China for a long time, so I think this is not an appropriate question for you to raise here."
