Moving on

Prime Minister May charts a Brexit course

Prime Minister Theresa May stated on Tuesday her intentions for the nature of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, the course that British voters chose in a June 23 referendum.

In doing so, she erased some of the uncertainty on all sides — supporters and opponents of Brexit, the other 27 members of the EU, the United States and other partners and competitors of the United Kingdom in the globalized world — over what her government was actually going to do to implement the results of the referendum. To do so was useful. There had been a certain amount of speculation as to whether Mrs. May would steam straight ahead or whether she was slow-rolling resolution of the issue, perhaps hoping that British public opinion would shift on the subject over concern about its possible economic consequences.

Mrs. May’s speech made it clear that she would be sailing a relatively “hard Brexit” course. The United Kingdom would not try to remain in the EU single market. It would not agree to continued free migration to the U.K. from EU countries. It would no longer support judgments of the European Court of Justice. It would try to wrap up the whole affair by March 2019.

To stiffen Britons’ resolve in the face of some of the pain that will inevitably accompany the split, she urged Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to stay the course, not threaten to break up the United Kingdom as it moves away from Europe. She also promised that both houses of Parliament would have the opportunity to review the EUU.K. breakup agreement before it is implemented. She didn’t say what would happen if Parliament rejected the proposed pact.

She asserted that she “wants to remain a good friend and neighbor to Europe” and argued against a breakup in which other EU nations tried to punish the U.K. for withdrawing. She pledged to seek a deal providing the “freest possible trade in goods and services between Britain and the EU’s member states.”

The United States, under the new administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump, is unlikely to take a position on the U.K.-EU negotiations and likely would agree on new bilateral trade terms quickly. At the same time, America potentially loses from the breakup. The U.K. served to a degree as an English-speaking bridge between the United States and Europe, in political/military as well as economic terms, the two reinforcing each other.

The U.K.’s move toward separating itself from Europe signals in no small way the end of the alliance that achieved and then cemented peace and cooperation in Europe, as opposed to the two wars that shattered the continent in the 20th century and required significant American intervention to be brought to an end. The British, however, once again have asserted their classic uniqueness and independence in Mrs. May’s promise Tuesday of her intention to bring about a clean break.