Downing Street has said lawmakers will be given “a say”, but has added there’s “no legal obligation” to consult Parliament.
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Conservative former foreign minister Sir Hugo Swire said there was a “definite fault line” within the Government about the approach to Brexit, and said it would be “premature” to invoke Article 50 until these differences are resolved.
Pro-Remain Labour MP Chuka Umunna, the chair of Vote Leave Watch, said: “It is now more than two months since the referendum was held, and many years since Vote Leave campaigners started dreaming about Brexit”.
Mrs May confirmed that she will not open exit negotiations under Article 50 of the European Union treaties before the end of this year, and pledged that there would be no second referendum and no attempt to keep Britain in the European Union “by the back door”.
The brain-storming session at Chequers will see every Cabinet Minister make a presentation over the course of the day about the opportunities they see for Britain following the European Union vote.
The prime minister is meeting cabinet colleagues at Chequers to discuss developments since June’s Leave vote.
“But I think a lot of people I know are saying to themselves, ‘It wasn’t the right decision.’ A lot of people are angry that they were quite clearly misled by the Brexit campaign”, he said.
“This is breathtaking complacency from a government that got us all into this mess in the first place”.
Mrs May assured her two counterparts that “though the United Kingdom is leaving the EU we are not turning our back on Europe and want to maintain a good relationship with the EU as well as individual European countries”.
The Labour leadership-hopeful said Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union David Davis, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had all previously suggested that voters should be given the opportunity to sign off on any deal struck between the United Kingdom and the EU.
Their advocacy of a deal, unlike that now given to other non-EU states such as Norway or Switzerland, that would give Britain access to European Union markets while accepting voters’ rejection of full free movement for European Union workers reflects types of Brexit compromise that officials are starting to think about.
“It will not be able to access the single market unless its accepts the four freedoms, all its regulation and budgetary solidarity”.
“People have been assuming there will have to be restrictions on immigration of some sort, either an emergency brake, or an Australian-style points system for European workers”, he told the Guardian. “Access to the single market, free of tariffs, free of custom duties”. The ability to do what we do now very well, which is to trade without barriers – that, I believe, should continue.
But one alternative would be a more substantial “emergency brake” mechanism than the one David Cameron negotiated before the referendum, aimed at curbing free movement to countries that have experienced high migration. “It has benefited our country, especially business”.
“And they voted in part, but an important part, to abandon, to get away from, the doctrine of the free movement of people”.
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According to a spokesperson for Number 10, May explained that Article 50 will not be triggered until next year.
