Britain is leaving the EU’s single market, Prime Minister Theresa May said Tuesday as she unveiled her strategy for leaving the European Union.
In hard hitting speech in London, May set out her vision of a
United Kingdom outside the EU. While saying she wanted Britain to be
a “best friend and neighbor to our European partners,” May said the U.K.
would be leaving the EU’s single market, leaving the EU’s customs union
in its current form, and ending large payments to the EU. She also
backed a “flexible” transitional deal but warned that she would rather
walk away from a deal than accept one that was bad for Britain. May
also said members of both houses of the British parliament would get a
vote on the final deal.
May ended months of speculation over whether she would pursue a hard Brexit
by saying she would seek “a new and equal partnership…Not partial
membership of the European Union, associate membership of the European
Union, or anything that leaves us half-in, half-out.
“We do not seek to adopt a model already enjoyed by other countries.
We do not seek to hold on to bits of membership as we leave,” she
said. “The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union. My job is to
get the right deal for Britain as we do.”
After describing the deal with the EU struck by David Cameron as a
“valiant final attempt,” May said “there was not enough flexibility” for
voters, which is why they backed Brexit in June.
May said remaining a member of the single market “would mean being
bound by EU laws. That would mean in practice not leaving the EU.”
The British PM, who took office shortly after the June 23 vote,
admitted that the U.K. was “at times seen as a awkward member” of the EU
and added that the vote was “not always well understood” in other
European capitals. But she said she did not want the Brexit vote to lead
to a greater unraveling of the EU,” a possible dig at U.S.
President-elect Donald Trump, who told the Times and Bild newspapers this week that he expected more EU members to leave the bloc.
She said she wanted “a truly global Britain” to be “the best friend
and neighbor to our European partners, but a country that reaches beyond
the borders of Europe too.”
While May was clear about leaving the single market, she was less
precise about the U.K.’s membership of the EU’s customs union. She said
continued customs union membership would stop the U.K. being able to
strike trade deals, but added that she wanted a customs agreement of
sorts with Europe and “that could mean partial membership of the customs
union.” How this would be achieved has yet to be decided, she said.
A number of European politicians, including Michel Barnier,
the European Commission’s main man on Brexit, have warned that the U.K.
would be on the hook for substantial payments into the EU budget even
after Brexit, but May said Britain would no longer contribute “huge
sums” to the EU once it leaves the bloc. She admitted that it might
continue to make some payments, “in return for access to certain
programs.”
May said that while Britain wants to remain a good friend and
neighbor to the Continent, she was aware of some calls to punish Britain
for voting to leave. A punitive deal would be “an act of calamitous
self-harm for the countries of Europe, and it would not be the act of a
friend,” she said, warning Europe that no deal for Britain would be
better than a bad deal.
May said she wanted to guarantee the rights of EU nationals in
Britain, and Britons living in Europe, as soon as possible, suggesting a
deal could be struck straightaway. She said many EU countries also want
an early deal, but not everyone.
Reversing her previous position, she said that MPs and members of the
House of Lords would get a vote on the final deal. The government had
long argued that it could invoke Article 50 without parliament’s
consent, but High Court judges disagreed. A verdict from the Supreme
Court, the highest in the country, is due any time and the government is
expected to lose the case.
The PM also said she would “consider papers from the Scottish and Welsh governments” as part of the Brexit strategy.
May proposed a flexible Brexit transitional deal, with different
aspects lasting for different amounts of time, and she warned that it
was in “no one’s interests to have a cliff edge” although she stressed
that she was opposed to an indefinite transition period.
She ended by saying: “The country is coming together. Now we need to
put an end to the division and the language associated with it – Leaver
and Remainer and all the accompanying insults – and unite to make a
success of Brexit.” (...)
politico
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