Britain’s minister charged with negotiating Brexit said on Monday it was pressing for a “unique” deal with the European Union to restore sovereignty, reduce immigration and boost trade with the bloc after their split. When the Article 50 countdown begins, Britain will be at a major negotiating disadvantage (expecially since other European leaders have an incentive to make this as unpleasant as possible for Britain in order to discourage any countries from getting similar ideas), so they’re trying to get as many concessions as they can now, before the clock officially starts running.
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May has said she will not show her hand before starting the Brexit talks, giving few details of what her government wants when it leaves the EU.
The conundrum of how to maintain the economic benefits of single market membership while also ending free movement of European Union citizens – seen by many as incompatible positions – has become central to the debate over how to deliver Brexit.
She said: “In looking at negotiations, it would not be right for me or this Government to give a running commentary on negotiations”.
Former shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said it was important to know what May values in Brexit negotiations and if she valued membership of the single market.
Referring to talks at the G20 Summit, May, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the margins of the summit, said: “As we leave the European Union we will forge our own trade deals”.
She refused to say whether she wanted the United Kingdom to remain in the European single market.
The PM has said the government will not reveal its hand too soon, amid pressure to set out its post-Brexit vision.
A senior Corbyn aide later said he was in favour of negotiating full United Kingdom access to the single market, but would not accept a package including requirements on deregulation and privatisation, which he regarded as damaging to working people and public services.
That prompted Mr Corbyn’s team to stress that he backed “full access” to the single market for goods and services but opposed certain directives linked to it, such as state aid rules and requirements to deregulate and privatise public services.
Number 10 immediately had to explain Davis was expressing a personal opinion, not government policy – even though he was addressing lawmakers in parliament in his first speech spelling out Brexit possibilities.
He also said that given the EU’s trade surplus with Britain, it would be in their interests to maintain “a very open free trading environment” with Britain following its exit from the bloc.
“It’s for the member state to decide”.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said she intends to seize new trading opportunities for a Britain that has voted to leave the European Union, reiterating that “Brexit does indeed mean Brexit” and there will be “no attempt to get out of this”.
“It is in all our interests that there is a smooth departure, that we continue to work together, albeit with the United Kingdom on the outside, about how we can deliver economic growth, make sure that economic benefits are being spread around the country”, her spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman said the mood of the pair’s first formal bilateral meeting, which took place over a breakfast of fresh fruit and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, as “quite relaxed, friendly and warm”.
May’s senior cabinet ministers, said that kind of system was the best way of controlling immigration, but on Monday the Prime Minister said it wouldn’t work.
He suggested that Mr Davis’s position and that of the PM are incompatible.
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“We’re working on an Australia-EU free trade agreement, which will prepare the way for our own agreement in years to come”.
