Under pressure to outline her government’s post-Brexit vision, British Prime Minister Theresa May said the United Kingdom could become “the global leader in free trade”.
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The UK government has given mixed signals concerning how it will approach the talks on issues such as free-market access and border controls, with Brexit minister David Davis admitting it will be hard to achieve all the UK’s aims on the big points, something May has distanced herself from.
The PM and her ministers were accused of “waffle” by Scottish National Party Westminster leader Angus Robertson, while the Liberal Democrats’ Tim Farron said: “This Government isn’t concealing its hand – it hasn’t got a hand or, it would appear, a clue”.
The minister’s comments came as he and other members of parliaments debated a public petition calling for a second Brexit referendum which has so far attracted more than 4.1 million signatures.
Ms May on Wednesday expressed confidence that Britain would secure new bilateral trade deals after it leaves the European Union, adding that a number of leaders she met at the G20 meeting in China this week said they would welcome talks on lowering trade barriers.
Mrs May’s words will fuel fears among voters and eurosceptic lawmakers that having a pro-Remain prime minister will result in a watered-down version of Brexit that does not represent what people voted for.
“The more they are going to regulate and limit the presence of European Union citizens in the United Kingdom, the more we are going to limit the presence of United Kingdom goods into Europe”, he told Bloomberg Television.
“We can certainly have preliminary discussions and that’s part of what I’m doing here this week, preliminary discussions around what a post-Brexit Australia-UK trade deal might look like”, he told the BBC. “No-one expects him [Davis] to have worked out all the answers yet but we do expect him to set out the outline of some kind of plan”, she said. “We will be ensuring that we seize the opportunities for growth and prosperity across the whole United Kingdom, including growth and prosperity in Scotland”.
British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at the dispatch box with British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond (L) and British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon (R) listening on the front bench during Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons in central London on September 7, 2016.
After Thursday’s talks, the prime minister will chair a cabinet subcommittee on Britain’s exit from the European Union which will focus on trade.
Tusk made it clear that it was now for the United Kingdom to take things forward as soon as possible.
Davis had left them in no doubt of how much information he would give away when he said early in his speech: “Naturally, people want to know what Brexit will mean”.
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Mr Ciobo said an eventual deal could be struck “quite quickly”, because of Australia’s close historic and cultural ties with the United Kingdom, but added: “You would expect it’s at least two and a half years off”.
