Foreign minister Boris Johnson and trade minister Liam Fox were part of the “Brexit” camp that argued that voting to leave the European Union would free Britain from the duty to admit all EU nationals who want to live and work here, enabling it to cut immigration.
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Donald Tusk is a businesslike pragmatist – hence his talk of turning the potentially fractious and intractable process of Brexit into a “velvet divorce”.
“I have no doubt that at the end of the day our common strategic goal is to establish the closest possible relations”, he said.
Yesterday, May’s spokeswoman said the meeting with Tusk would not only cover Britain’s exit, or “Brexit”, but would also discuss issues on the agenda for the October meeting of European Union leaders, suggesting that Britain still plans to play a role.
The meeting between Mrs May and Mr Tusk was being billed as an attempt for the two leaders to get to know each other ahead of those negotiations, BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said. He said the process should begin as soon as possible.
But May is under strong pressure at home to define what a post-Brexit world would look like, and one of her key challenges would be renegotiating Britain’s access to world markets – an issue that Brussels now undertakes on its behalf. To put it simply, the ball is now in your court.
Downing Street has distanced itself from the comments, but Mrs May was twice challenged on the issue by the SNP’s Westminster leader Angus Robertson.
Stressing the importance of the summit, Carolyn Fairbairn, Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), commented: “Signing ambitious trade deals after concluding negotiations with the European Union will ultimately lead to more jobs being created here at home, and so should be top of the Prime Minister’s agenda”.
The Prime Minister has already slapped down her Brexit secretary David Davis for suggesting that continued membership of the free trade zone was “very improbable”.
May has insisted she will not reveal her negotiating hand “prematurely”. “All of this is going to have to be negotiated with our European partners, but we should go after the best deal we can”.
Her comments came after Downing Street distanced itself from Brexit Secretary David Davis’s suggestion that it is “very improbable” the United Kingdom can remain part of the European single market if it wishes to regain control over its own borders.
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“Labour should be fighting for Britain to stay in the single market, not turning a blind eye to its advantages”.
