The British premier also used her first parliamentary appearance after a summer break to embarrass Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over the impending Labour party leadership election. According to Davis, seeking a free trade agreement instead would bring “opportunities” whilst allowing the United Kingdom to decide on “borders”, “laws” and “taxpayers’ money”.
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MP Ben Bradshaw said giving up membership of the single market out of a “dogmatic” need to cut immigration would be an act of self harm, and former shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt asked what conversations the Prime Minister has had with Japan about Brexit.
In a statement to the House of Commons, the prime minister said the Government would not “reveal our hand prematurely”. “People ask me a question, they get an answer”, she said. “It is not about the Norway model or the Swiss model or any other country’s model, it is about developing our own British model”, she added.
“Mr Speaker, what we do know is whoever wins the Labour leadership, we are not going to let them anywhere near power again”, she said. “We will not reveal our hand prematurely and we will not provide a running commentary on every twist and turn of the negotiation”. “That relationship will include control of the movement of people coming to the U.K. And it will include the right deal for trade in goods and services”. In practice, the two-year process will focus on unravelling UK-EU treaty obligations, in particular contributions to EU budgets but also including issues like liability for pay and pensions of British EU staff. Discussions would also take place on the future “framework” for trade relations, but a deal on that may take much longer to agree. The leaders from India, Mexico, South Korea and Singapore said they would welcome talks to remove trade barriers.
Number 10 distanced itself from David Davis when he said it was “very improbable” Britain would stay in the single market, for which European Union leaders will likely demand free movement in return.
Mrs May was challenged by the SNP’s Westminster leader Angus Robertson to say whether she wanted the United Kingdom to remain fully within the single market.
Mr Robertson claimed so far the Government had only come up with “waffle” about the post-Brexit plan.
She said: “When the British people voted to leave the European Union, they did not vote to leave Europe, to turn inwards or to walk away from the G20 or any of our worldwide partners around the world”.
Mrs May insisted that “we are respecting the views of the British people” rather than attempting to row back from Brexit.
In other words, we’ll all just have to wait and see what she negotiates.
At the first Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) since the summer recess, May was challenged by Labour and SNP MPs to confirm if the United Kingdom will stay in the European single market.
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But despite May’s stonewalling, I think we did learn something from her determination not to “pre-judge” the results of the Brexit negotiations and her desire not to rule anything out.
