British Prime Minister Theresa May will publish details on Thursday of her long-awaited Brexit plan to restart talks with the European Union (EU), after facing down a revolt by eurosceptic ministers that could still unseat her.<\/p>\n
In a policy paper, the government will outline proposals to allow Britain to maintain close economic and security ties with the European Union even after it leaves the bloc in March.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a vision that respects the result of the referendum (vote to leave), and delivers a principled and practical Brexit,\u201d Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said in the foreword.<\/p>\n
But the plan has caused outrage among eurosceptic members of May\u2019s Conservative party, and Raab\u2019s predecessor David Davis and foreign minister Boris Johnson dramatically quit this week in protest.<\/p>\n
Their departures, followed by a clutch of junior aides, destabilised May\u2019s government and revived talk of a leadership challenge against her.<\/p>\n
The prime minister is also likely to face some opposition in Brussels, where officials have repeatedly warned Britain to lower its expectations about how close ties can be.<\/p>\n
May has briefed leaders including EU president Donald Tusk and German chancellor Angela Merkel on her plan and reported a positive response, although they are awaiting the detail.<\/p>\n
Britain does not have long to argue its case — both sides are aiming for a deal by October, to allow time for its ratification by the British and European parliaments.<\/p>\n
Failure to agree would see Britain leave the EU without a deal, with the risk of huge economic disruption on both sides of the Channel.<\/p>\n
Britain voted for Brexit in June 2016, but May has so far been unable to present a common position to Brussels on what she wants because of deep divisions in her government.<\/p>\n
Amid warnings from businesses that continued uncertainty is risking investment and jobs, and fears time is running out, her cabinet finally agreed on a plan last week.<\/p>\n
Britain would leave the EU\u2019s single market and customs union as planned, to end free movement of people and sign its own non-EU trade deals.<\/p>\n
But it would keep EU rules on goods to protect complex manufacturing supply chains, using technology to levy its own duties on UK-bound products from outside the bloc, while diverging on services.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to rise to the challenge and grasp the opportunities\u201d of Brexit, said Raab, adding that the policy represented a \u201cbalance\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Johnson, a leading Brexit campaigner, said following EU rules without being able to alter them risked consigning Britain to the \u201cstatus of colony\u201d, and said it looked like a \u201csemi-Brexit\u201d.<\/p>\n
Other eurosceptics who want a clean break with the bloc are also livid, prompting speculation they may launch a confidence vote against May.<\/p>\n
Brexit-backing MPs, including leading eurosceptic Conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg, will also seek to force her hand by tabling amendments to a trade bill being debated in the House of Commons next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
British Prime Minister Theresa May will publish details on Thursday of her long-awaited Brexit plan to restart talks with the European Union (EU), after facing down a revolt by eurosceptic ministers that could still unseat her. In a policy paper, the government will outline proposals to allow Britain to maintain close economic and security ties […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36898"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36902,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36898\/revisions\/36902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}