Brexit: Theresa May files divorce papers
Notified EU Council president in a letter, has two years to settle terms
PRIME Minister Theresa May filed formal Brexit divorce papers yesterday, pitching the UK into the unknown and triggering years of uncertain negotiations that will test the EU’s endurance. Nine months after Britons voted to leave, May will notify EU Council president Donald Tusk in a letter that the UK is quitting the bloc it joined in 1973.
The prime minister, an initial opponent of Brexit who won the top job in the political turmoil that followed the referendum vote, will then have two years to settle the terms of the divorce before it comes into effect in late March 2019.
“Now that the decision has been made to leave the EU, it is time to come together,” May told politicians, according to comments supplied by her office.
“When I sit around the negotiating table in the months ahead, I will represent every person in the whole United Kingdom – young and old, rich and poor, city, town, country and all the villages and hamlets in between,” May said.
May, 60, has one of the toughest jobs of any recent British prime minister: holding Britain together in the face of renewed Scottish independence demands, while conducting arduous talks with 27 other states on finance, trade, security and a host of other complex issues.
The outcome of the negotiations will shape the future of Britain’s economy, the world’s fifth biggest, and determine if London can keep its place as one of the top two global financial centres.
For the EU, already reeling from successive crises over debt and refugees, the loss of Britain is the biggest blow yet to 60 years of efforts to forge European unity in the wake of two devastating world wars.
Its leaders say they do not want to punish Britain. But with nationalist, anti-EU parties on the rise across the bloc, they cannot afford to give London generous terms that might encourage other member states to follow its example and break away.
May’s notice of the UK’s intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty was due to be hand-delivered to Tusk in Brussels by Tim Barrow, Britain’s permanent representative to the EU.
May, who on Tuesday signed the Brexit letter and spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel about the future talks, updated the British parliament yesterday while Tusk was to brief reporters.
The Sun, Britain’s most popular newspaper, projected giant messages to Europe including “Dover and Out”, “Goodbye” and “See EU Later” on to England’s iconic white cliffs of Dover that face the continent in the form of France.
In the French media, the response was less celebratory. The Libération newspaper led with the headline: “We miss you already! Or do we...” over a picture of a guard wearing a bearskin hat, a traditional symbol of Britain.
The Brexit letter was expected to seek to set a positive tone for the talks and recap 12 key points which May set out as her goals in a speech on January 17, EU officials said.
Within 48 hours of reading the letter, Tusk will send the 27 other states draft negotiating guidelines. – Reuters