Brexit talks to begin in Brussels today
PM still hammering out details with DUP to stay in power
Britain begins historic talks on leaving the European Union on Monday while still mourning the victims of a devastating fire and reeling from an election that has badly weakened the government.
Brexit minister David Davis will travel to Brussels to meet Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, to kick off hugely complex withdrawal negotiations that are expected to last less than two years.
Worried by immigration and loss of sovereignty, Britain had voted in 2016 to end its decades-old membership of the 28country bloc — the first country ever to do so — in a shock referendum result.
The government has developed a strategy of “hard Brexit” to cut the numbers of immigrants arriving from the EU at the expense of Britain’s membership of the European single market and customs union.
But, that entire approach has come under question following a general election earlier this month in which Prime Minister Theresa May lost her Conservative party’s parliamentary majority.
Ordinary Britons are also beginning to feel the cost of Brexit because of higher import prices caused by a plunge in the pound and businesses are increasingly worried about losing trade access.
Ms May has clung on to power since the election, but has so far failed to strike an agreement with Northern Ireland’s ultraconservative Democratic Unionist Party that would allow her to govern.
The Tories now only have 317 seats in the 650seat House of Commons.
With her strategy unclear and her position insecure, Prime Minister Theresa May plunges this week into tortuous divorce talks with the European Union (EU) that will shape Britain’s prosperity and global influence for generations to come.
Ms May’s government is reeling from a crisis of her own making: the loss of her parliamentary majority in a June 8 snap election she did not need to call. Her entire Brexit strategy is being picked apart in public by her ministers, her lawmakers and her allies on the eve of formal negotiations which begin in Brussels on Monday.
Brexit minister David Davis insisted on Sunday there would be no turning back. “As I head to Brussels to open official talks to leave the EU, there should be no doubt — we are leaving the European Union,” said Mr Davis, who will launch the talks with chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier.
With Ms May still hammering out the details of a post-election deal to stay in power with the support of a small Northern Irish party, there are fears of a disorderly exit that would weaken the West, imperil Britain’s $2.5 trillion economy and undermine London’s position as the only financial centre to rival New York.
Leaving the EUis now the official consensus of both the Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party. Amid such upheaval, though, there is little agreement on what kind of Brexit May should try for — even assuming she can hold onto her job.
“The United Kingdom’s political tectonic plates are moving at the very moment when we are negotiating Brexit,” said Anand Menon, professor of politics at King’s College London.