Theresa May
(LONDON) – The United Kingdom must leave the EU’s single market, prime minister Theresa May said in a speech Tuesday setting out her Brexit negotiating priorities as part of a Plan for Britain after leaving the EU.
Mrs May, who has promised Britain will give notice in march to leave the EU under Article 50, said Britain now had a ‘Plan for Britain’, setting out “how we will use this moment of change to build a stronger economy and a fairer society by embracing genuine economic and social reform”.
She also confirmed that her government would put any final deal agreed between the UK and the EU to a vote in both British Houses of Parliament, before it comes into force.
Laying out her plan, Mrs May made clear she still saw Britain as a European country, a country that was not insular but was still interested in international relationship, and “racially diverse”. She insisted the United Kingdom could be kept together – despite Scotland’s wish to remain in the EU.
Britain was not choosing to step back from the world, she said, and Britons would continue to want to travel to, study in, and trade with countries in Europe and beyond. EU nationals would “still be welcome in this country as we hope our citizens will be welcome in yours” she said. “It remains overwhelmingly and compellingly in Britain’s national interest that the EU should succeed.
“The decision to leave the EU represents no desire to become more distant to you, our friends and neighbours”, Mrs May said: “It was no attempt to do harm to the EU itself or to any of its remaining member states. We do not want to turn the clock back to the days when Europe was less peaceful, less secure and less able to trade freely.”
But she insisted there would be no “partial membership of the European Union, associate membership of the European Union, or anything that leaves us half-in, half-out”.
The ‘Plan for Britain’ is for a new and equal partnership with “our friends and allies in the EU”, and its objectives include:
- Control of our own laws
- Strengthening the United Kingdom
- Maintaining the Common Travel Area with Ireland
- Control of immigration
- Rights for EU nationals in Britain, and British nationals in the EU
- Enhancing rights for workers
- Free trade with European markets
- New trade agreements with other countries
- A leading role in science and innovation
- Cooperation on crime, terrorism and foreign affairs
- A phased approach, delivering a smooth and orderly Brexit.
The objective of a proposed Free Trade Agreement between Britain and the European Union explicitly rules out membership of the EU’s Single Market.
Mrs May warned the EU against a “punitive” reaction to Brexit, saying this would result in “calamitous self-harm for the countries of Europe and it would not be the act of a friend”.
Mrs May, who said she was confident “a new strategic partnership between the UK and the EU” could be achieved, also announced that the British Parliament would now get a vote on the final deal agreed between the UK and the European Union.
The announcement was not universally welcomed. It took Britain “a step closer towards a destructive, hard Brexit”, said Chris Leslie MP, for Open Europe: “Despite the prospect of fewer jobs, higher prices and less money for our public services like the NHS, the Prime Minister in her speech today gave a nod to those wanting Britain to pull up the draw bridge by signalling that Britain is prepared to quit the Single Market”, he said.
“A Britain outside the EU but inside the Single Market is what millions of Leave and Remain voters are calling for. It’s the only way to protect British jobs, businesses, trade and investment.”
On the other side, Arron Banks, who bankrolls the Leave.EU campaign, was not looking forward to the promised parliamentary vote: “May has opened the door to a Remainer coup. The House of Lords is a chamber of party political cronies, unfit for purpose.”
The government’s negotiating objectives for exiting the EU: Mrs May’s speech
