The Latest: UK lawmakers express safety concerns to police

BRUSSELS — The Latest on Britain’s impending departure from the European Union (all times local):

11 a.m.

Some 55 British legislators have expressed safety concerns in a letter to London’s police chief after a lawmaker was verbally abused while discussing Brexit outside Parliament.

The letter was sent to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick late Monday night following the verbal assaults on Conservative Party legislator Anna Soubry.

The letter says there have been “months of peaceful and calm protests” by groups holding a wide variety of views on Brexit but that recently “an ugly element of individuals with strong far right and extreme right connections” have moved in.

There have been a number of recent incidents in the area outside Parliament where politicians routinely do live broadcast interviews.

Soubry was repeatedly called a Nazi by protesters while she was being interviewed by BBC.

Police say they are investigating to determine if any crimes were committed.

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10:40 a.m.

A British government minister working on the process of taking the country out of the European Union says the government will not seek to extend the two-year period in which its departure must happen.

Britain leaves the EU on March 29, when the EU treaty’s Article 50 governing the procedure times out, but the U.K. parliament still has not endorsed Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

May can request an extension, but all 27 other EU countries must agree, and the bloc’s leaders said last month that they would want good reasons to prolong it.

Britain’s minister of state for exiting the EU, Martin Callanan, said in Brussels Tuesday that “Article 50 will not be extended. We are leaving the EU on the 29th of March this year.”

The Associated Press

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