LONDON: Prime Minister Theresa May said on Sunday she would
not be derailed from leaving the European Union, laying the groundwork
for difficult meetings this week in which she will try to unite a
divided cabinet behind her vision for post-Brexit Britain.
May
was applauded by European Union leaders in Brussels on Friday after
securing an agreement to move previously-deadlocked talks forward onto
the topic of interim and long-term trading arrangements.
The
progress has gone some way to easing concerns of businesses and
investors who fear Britain could crash out of the bloc without an exit
deal, or that May’s fragile government could collapse under the pressure
of delivering Brexit.
“Amid all the noise, we are
getting on with the job,” May wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. “My message
today is very clear: we will not be derailed from this fundamental duty
to deliver the democratic will of the British people.”
But
May can expect some difficult exchanges this week when she and senior
ministers discuss the so-called “end state” of the Brexit negotiations
for the first time since Britain voted to leave the EU in a referendum
in June 2016.
The type of long-term relationship the
country should have with the EU is a vexed question at every level in
Britain, including within May’s cabinet where some want to keep close
ties with the EU and others want a more radical divorce from Brussels.
Mindful of the need to keep both sides happy, May has so far plotted a careful path.
May
says she wants a wide-ranging free trade deal with the EU and a more
outward-looking trade policy, but has largely steered clear of the more
contentious issues such as whether Britain should stay aligned with EU
trading rules and the future role of European courts.
Meetings expected to take place on Monday and Tuesday are likely to force those issues out into the open.
One
of the key pro-Brexit voices in the cabinet, foreign minister Boris
Johnson, has set out his own view ahead of the meetings, warning May
that Britain must avoid becoming subordinate to the EU.
“What
we need to do is something new and ambitious, which allows zero tariffs
and frictionless trade but still gives us that important freedom to
decide our own regulatory framework, our own laws and do things in a
distinctive way in the future, he told the Sunday Times newspaper.
He
said that mirroring EU laws would leave Britons asking “What is the
point of what you have achieved? because we would have gone from a
member state to a vassal state.”
