Calls for UK to speed up withdrawal

Britain needs to speed up its exit from the EU, the former head of the European central bank has insisted.

The UK needed to accept the four pillars of the single market, including free movement of labour, if it wanted to remain in the trading area after withdrawal, said Jean Claude Trichet.

“We know in advance that we have quite a long period of uncertainty and I would call for that period to be as short as possible, and for the position of the British government to be as clear as possible, as soon as possible,” he told the BBC.

Former Irish prime minister, and ex-eu ambassador to the US, John Bruton also criticised London’s failure to prepare for Brexit.

“I think there is a lot of surprise in other European countries that the government, which decided in its manifesto that it would have a referendum, hadn’t prepared in advance what it would look for once it left, given that there was always going to be a possibility that was going to be the result. One would have thought they would have prepared in the event that the people voted to leave,” he told the BBC.