Theresa May has signed the letter that will formally begin divorce proceedings from the EU. The letter, signed yesterday, will be hand delivered to European Council President Donald Tusk at around 12.30pm on Wednesday.
Addressing MPs in the Commons on Wednesday as the letter is delivered, the Prime Minister will say: “Now that the decision has been made to leave the EU, it is time to come together,”
“When I sit around the negotiating table in the months ahead, I will represent every person in the whole United Kingdom – young and old, rich and poor, city, town, country and all the villages and hamlets in between,”
Many of the terms by which the UK will leave the EU are still unclear. Whilst many EU leaders say they do not want to punish Britain, they do not want to give generous terms to encourage other anti-EU countries that are on the rise to also break away.
What May has made clear is that she aims to seek access to European markets but also that Britain will establish its own free trade deals with countries beyond Europe, and impose strict limits on immigration.
Support from other parties has been mixed. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has told the Prime Minister that although he thinks Brexit will be “a national failure of historic proportions” if Theresa May did not ensure workers rights, he respected Britain’s choice to leave.
The Lib Dems said that Mrs May was “pulling the trigger that will set in motion a chain of events which will change this country forever, and doing so without a proper plan”,
“Unpatriotic, pro-EU fanatics will continue to try to derail or, at the very least, delay Brexit,” the group’s co-chairman, Richard Tice, said.
The negotiations necessary to leave are expected to start in mid-May. The UK government wants to carry out talks about separation and trade at the same time, but EU chiefs say these issues must be handled separately.
Unless both the EU and UK agree to extend the deadline for negotiations, the UK will leave on 29 March 2019.