Walking away from the EU

This editorial appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press:

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May has accepted the rule laid down by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the terms of Britain’s exit from the European Union: Britain has to pull out of the EU entirely and start over to negotiate a free-trade agreement with its neighbours. Chancellor Merkel, anxious to preserve the EU with its remaining 27 member countries, would not hear of Britain staying in the EU for selected purposes and pulling out of the bits it did not like.

In a speech Tuesday to foreign ambassadors in London, May said she would withdraw her country from the European single market and the European Court of Justice, stop paying into the EU budget, seek tarifffree trade with the EU and with other countries and limit entry of migrants from Europe. Britain’s parliament will vote on the resulting new deal with Europe once it is concluded two years from now.

May’s first problem was to preserve the unity of her ruling Conservative party and maintain her own right to govern. She came to power in July last year after the former prime minister, David Cameron, lost his referendum to keep Britain in the EU. Cameron resigned, and May, who had also campaigned to stay in Europe, took his place. Her party and the opposition Labour Party remain divided, as does the country, on the merits of EU membership.

The plan she presented should satisfy most of the Leavers in her party because it does restore the sovereignty of the British Parliament to make the laws of Britain, and it does restore British control over entry of migrants. It should satisfy most of the Remainers because it aims for the freest possible trade that can be negotiated with the EU and with other countries such as Canada and the U.S.

British manufacturers will now be released from compliance with dictates from Brussels covering the size, colour, quality and labelling of their products. For many purposes, Britain will probably enforce a European standard, though British authorities will have no voice in writing those standards. Britain’s Leavers wanted to be bullied by British bureaucrats, not foreign ones, and Ms. May’s plan should achieve that goal after a fashion.