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.
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The meeting comes after she slapped down Brexit Secretary David Davis for suggesting that continued membership of the free trade zone was “very improbable”.
He also said Germany should seek to remain “as close as possible” with the United Kingdom after Brexit and urged negotiators on both sides to “think out of the box”. Preliminary discussions around what a post-Brexit Australia-UK trade deal might look like.
Immigration was not on the agenda at a meeting of Cabinet which Mrs May chaired in 10 Downing Street immediately after returning from China early on Tuesday morning.
The Brexit is a disorientating prospect for Ireland, according to the President of the European Council.
Davis said May herself will lead Britain’s exit negotiations and will be supported on a day-to-day basis by the Department for Exiting the European Union.
During the June 23 referendum, 17.4 million people, or 51.9 percent of the electorate, voted to leave the European Union while 48.1 percent, or 16.1 million people, voted to stay.
Later, going into talks with May, the European Council President added: “I’m aware that it is not easy, but I still hope you will be ready to start the process [of leaving the EU] as soon as possible”.
But Australian trade minister Steven Ciobo warned in a speech in London late Tuesday that negotiations on a bilateral agreement may be “a few years off” – and said that his country would prioritize a deal with the EU.
May’s spokeswoman, Helen Bower, denied that Tusk’s comments were an attempt to put pressure on Britain. Free movement of people among member states is a core principle of the bloc.
“We will not reveal our hand prematurely and we will not provide a running commentary on every twist and turn of the negotiation”.
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. Our task now is to deliver the will of the British people and negotiate the best possible deal for our country.
May’s spokeswoman later stressed that Davis was expressing his own opinion, not government policy.
But at least seven lawsuits have been brought to force the government to accept that parliament should decide whether Britain should trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the formal exit process, rather than the prime minister.
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The U.K.is looking to negotiate a special deal with the rest of the European Union to sell more of their products overseas but a number of European Union politicians are calling for a strict approach to the U.K.’s exit, including calling for the U.K.to pay what they say are billions of euros in outstanding debt to the economic bloc.
