But former chancellor and Brexit campaigner Lord Lawson said Article 50 should be tabled as soon as possible and Britain should not “waste time trying to negotiate elaborately” a special trade deal with the EU. A spokeswoman for May said her ministers had reiterated the government’s commitment to fiscal discipline and living within its means.
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But other cabinet members, including a newly created position to help navigate the Brexit, have said that curbing immigration can only come if the country exits the single market completely.
New British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will not trigger the EU’s Article 50 in 2016, to begin formal talks with the bloc to negotiate the terms of Britain’s exit from the European Union and its future trading relationship with the bloc.
Britain voted to leave the European Union in a June referendum, prompting the resignation of May’s predecessor David Cameron, who led the campaign to remain in the 28-nation bloc.
The pledge will mean European leaders, who say that the free movement of EU migrants is essential to being in the single market, will have to decide to continue trading freely with the United Kingdom with such migration controls in place. “At the moment, I don’t think we know that”.
May’s spokesman had already confirmed there would be no second referendum or snap general election, despite the hopes of some “Remain” campaigners that the process of leaving the European Union could be stalled.
May outlined immigration as the “red line” for Brexit negotiations after a cabinet meeting at the British prime minister’s country residence Chequers in Buckinghamshire. “A long period of uncertainty is bad for the economy and British business, and the sooner this is sorted out the better”, Lord Lawson said.
“It is sheer, high-handed arrogance for them to say they will take all the decisions themselves, with no consultation of parliament or the public, with the devolved administrations consulted but not listened to”, the opposition Labour Party’s shadow foreign minister, Emily Thornberry, said.
The prime minister has repeatedly said she won’t formally begin the exit process before the end of this year.
In an article for the state-run China Daily, China’s ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming urged Britain to “continue to be pragmatic and stay open to Chinese businesses” after the Brexit vote.
“While this was always the plan – to make products for Europe in Europe (alongside our Croatian factory) – the reality of the Brexit vote has meant we have done it with a bullet”, the company said in a statement, Reuters reports.
Meanwhile, European Council president Donald Tusk confirmed that Brussels will not engage in negotiations on its future relationship with the United Kingdom until London formally gives notice of its intention to leave under Article 50 of the EU Treaties.
“They should … get their act together and tell us what they really want out of this”, he said.
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Mr Liu made no direct reference to Hinkley, but said “a number of steps need to be taken in order to maintain the momentum in the relationship” between London and Beijing.
