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Prime Minister Theresa May said she’ll begin the U.K.’s withdrawal from the European Union in the first quarter of 2017 in her clearest announcement yet about her government’s Brexit strategy.
“I will be saying in my speech today that we will trigger before the end of March next year,” May told BBC Television’s “Andrew Marr Show” on Sunday before the start of her Conservative Party’s annual conference in Birmingham, central England.
In the interview, 101 days since the U.K.’s shock vote to leave the EU, May signaled the pullout will be completed in 2019, 46 years after the country joined the bloc. She had previously only committed to not invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty — the formal trigger for two years of talks — this year. May also said she’ll introduce a bill next year to convert all EU laws into U.K. legislation on the day that Brexit is completed.
The government’s planned “Great Repeal Bill” will abolish the 1972 European Communities Act, while converting all EU laws governed by it into domestic legislation on the day Britain eventually completes its pullout, according to May’s Conservative Party. Subsequent governments will then be able to repeal or amend individual laws.
The bill will be introduced in Parliament between May 2017 and May 2018, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling told ITV’s “Peston on Sunday” program. On the same show, former Business Minister Anna Soubry, who left her post when May became premier, said that the repeal act was a necessary step but not a “big deal.” She called for more detail on the “guiding principles” of the government’s Brexit plan and expressed concern at the timeline.
‘Something Worse’
“We need to know what are our red lines as we go into this process,” Soubry said. “This idea that we hold the cards and that the EU is going to come to us and say, ‘Do you know what, we’ll give you pretty much what you want’ — the idea that we’re going to get anything like we’ve got now is rubbish. We’re going to get something worse.”
The pound just wrapped up its worst quarterly run against the dollar since 1984, driven down first by the result of the June 23 referendum and then kept weak by speculation of a swift, severe break. It found some support as the economy proved more resilient than most forecast.
Business Anxiety
Nissan Motor Co. Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn signaled on Sept. 29 that he may not be able to make new investments in Britain without a government pledge for compensation in the event of adverse consequences stemming from Brexit. And Vodafone Group Plc has said it’ll consider moving its headquarters to mainland Europe if Britain doesn’t preserve access to the EU’s single market.
Still left unsaid are what exactly May will seek in the talks and what her counterparts in Europe will agree to. As well as commerce and immigration, the two sides must find common ground on rights for their citizens in each other’s country, the border between the two Irelands and what if anything the U.K. contributes to the EU budget. There’s also a string of legal, regulatory, energy, agricultural and security issues to address.
“We still know nothing about the government’s plans for our new relationship with the EU, whether over trade, security or migration,” Phil Wilson, an opposition Labour Party lawmaker, said in a statement e-mailed by the pro-EU Open Britain campaign. “As car manufacturers have made clear, it is essential that the U.K. remains a member of the single market to protect investment and jobs. This is what businesses want to hear the prime minister commit to.”
Virtual Unanimity
Having agreed to grant May space to form a strategy, the 27 other EU leaders arevirtually unanimous in arguing she cannot “cherry-pick” the best parts of membership, a Bloomberg News analysis showed. The U.K. “cannot have the advantages of the European Union without carrying out the obligations,” Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said in a recent interview.
May’s latest decision will pacify those foreign officials who warned against her avoiding divorce talks long beyond the end of this year. There are elections in Germany, France and the Netherlands in 2017 and the worry was extended uncertainty would hurt already-weak economic growth and fan populist support elsewhere in the region.
“The remaining members of the EU have to decide what the process of negotiation is,” May said. “I hope and I’ll be saying to them that now that they know what our timing is going to be — it’s not an exact date, but they know that it’ll be in the first quarter of next year — that we’ll be able to have some preparatory work so that once the trigger comes we have a smoother process of negotiation.”
