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PM Theresa May: UK Must Leave the EU Single Market

posted by takyon on Tuesday January 17 2017, @12:42PM   Printer-friendly

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has given a major speech calling for a clean break from the EU:

Theresa May has said the UK "cannot possibly" remain within the European single market, as staying in it would mean "not leaving the EU at all". But the prime minister promised to push for the "greatest possible" access to the single market following Brexit. In a long-awaited speech, she also announced Parliament would get a vote on the final deal agreed between the UK and the European Union. And Mrs May promised an end to "vast contributions" to the European Union.

Live updates at BBC.

Previously: Brexit: The Focus is on the EU Single Market

 
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  • (Score: 2) by tonyPick on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:20AM

    by tonyPick (1237) on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:20AM (#455313) Homepage Journal

    It is possible to access the single market without swallowing the whole hook line and sinker.

    Sort of - as far as membership of the EEA goes (the actual single market[1]) the members are all EU or EFTA members. Norway is an EFTA member, and *is* signed up to all the market regulations and the four basic EU freedoms[2], as are Iceland & Liechtenstein.

    There's only one EFTA member that isn't signed up to everything as part of the EEA, and that's Switzerland[3]. However the Swiss-EU agreement still signs up the Swiss to almost all of the EEA legislation, and in particular the free movement of people (they're part of the Schengen Area).

    The bad news for the UK government is that freedom of movement (the thing they absolutely will not sign up to) is a dealbreaker for the EU, and the Swiss attempt to restrict free movement will push them out of the EEA by default[4].

    The other piece of bad news is that the Swiss deal took over five years to negotiate, seven years to implement, and as of 11 years later had 210 negotiated treaties to get to the state they're in.

    The UK needs to resolve all of this in a year and a half.

    (
    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area [wikipedia.org]
    [2] http://www.efta.int/eea/eea-agreement/eea-basic-features#4 [efta.int]
    [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_Union_relations [wikipedia.org]
    [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_immigration_referendum,_February_2014 [wikipedia.org]
    )

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