The British government led by David Cameron held a referendum on the issue in 2016; the electorate decided by a 3.8% majority to favour leaving the European Union. On 29 March 2017, arising from a decision by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Theresa May invoked Article 50 in a letter to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk. The UK ceased to be a EU member state as from 00:00, 1 February 2020 Central European Time (UTC+1) (23:00, 31 January 2020 Western European Time (GMT, UTC+0). Following the UK Parliament's decisions not to ratify the Brexit withdrawal agreement negotiated between the European Council and the UK government, several extensions of the deadline were agreed.