Theresa May’s Brexit speech is just hot air as EU refuses preparatory talks

Last Updated: October 4, 2016By
Theresa May has promised article 50 will be triggered by the end of March [Image: Xinhua/Barcroft Images].

Theresa May has promised article 50 will be triggered by the end of March [Image: Xinhua/Barcroft Images].

Theresa May has manufactured yet another disappointment for the UK and herself – in her Tory conference speech, of all places.

The unelected prime minister announced that the UK would invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty – our formal resignation from the EU – next March.

But with the European Commission rejecting calls for preparatory talks, many people will be asking the obvious question: Why hang about? Why not issue the official notification now?

By laying down March as the deadline, Mrs May is saying she wants to delay the process for six months, on top of the three we’ve had already.

It’s bad for business. The markets have been friendly to the Tories so far, but that won’t last forever.

The longer she puts off the inevitable, the worse the end result is likely to be. Does she want that?

The European commission has rejected Theresa May’s call for preparatory talks on Brexit before the UK’s formal resignation from the EU.

The commission, which will run Brexit talks for the EU, reiterated its refusal to negotiate before article 50 is triggered, which the prime minister has promised will happen by before the end of March. “I cannot go an inch beyond the ‘no negotiations without notification’ principle,” said Margaritis Schinas, the chief spokesman for the commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker.

The prime minister, who delighted Eurosceptics with her party conference speech, which leaned towards a complete break with the EU, is pushing for advance talks, before article 50. She said it was important for the UK and for Europe as a whole, to carry out “preparatory work” to ensure smoother negotiations.

Juncker will meet May on the sidelines of a European summit in October, but would not negotiate with her, his spokesman said.

“When it comes to article 50 we will work constructively on the basis of a notification, not on the basis of a speech. And until this letter of notification arrives, there will be no negotiations. Once it arrives we are prepared to engage constructively and in good faith,” the spokesman said.

EU diplomats have rebuffed attempts by British colleagues to launch informal preparatory talks on article 50; so far the consensus shows no sign of cracking.

Source: EU commission still refuses UK talks before article 50 triggered | Politics | The Guardian

ADVERT




Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in eBook format here:

HWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

latest video

news via inbox

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

No Comments

  1. Jon Jaguar October 4, 2016 at 2:14 pm - Reply

    Manoeuvre, manoeuvre. The moment s50 is triggered Britain will habe two short years to make deals. This gives the EU Commission the whiphand in negotiations because they’re not in any hurry – Britain is.

  2. NMac October 4, 2016 at 2:28 pm - Reply

    She’s inherited a poison chalice, but by sitting in the shadows during the referendum campaign in order to further her career it is a chalice she helped to create. Now, as she stands in the hole dug by Cameron and herself, she appears to want to keep digging. What an unholy mess these cretins have created – a poisoned chalice for poisonous Tory politicians. The Labour Party must get itself together and hold them to account.

    PS: Off the subject, but what is happening about the numerous Tory MPs under investigation for fraud? If they were to be suspended, and by-elections called, the political scene could be very different.

    • Barry Davies October 4, 2016 at 4:21 pm - Reply

      You mean the labour party that purports to support the very people who voted leave then. The eu will be having the talks just because they say they aren’t doesn’t mean anything, they have previous for withholding information from what it considers are the plebs.

      • Mike Sivier October 4, 2016 at 10:10 pm - Reply

        Really?
        Or is that paranoid, anti-EU propaganda?
        You don’t have any evidence, I suppose?
        If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

  3. Roy Beiley October 4, 2016 at 3:52 pm - Reply

    The swiveleyed loons at the Tory Conference will believe any old tripe their MP’s tell them. Theresa May seems to have a specific speech problem. She comes across as totally uncincincing to ne. It is as if the words she is trying to say do not want to be uttered and she looks hesitant and uneasy in her monotonic presentation.By ignoring the sometime future EU negotiators telling her that “preliminary talks”are not going to happen, it gives the impression that we are not going to be told by Johnny Foreigner what the rules are. We make the rules Mr EU negotiator. Got it?

  4. chriskitcher October 4, 2016 at 6:10 pm - Reply

    Personally I think that the three stooges, Johnson,Davies and Fox, haven’t a clue what they expect from the exit negotiations. They lied to get us into this mess and they will make a mess of getting us out of it. Complete wasters the three of them.

  5. Jezzabola October 4, 2016 at 6:27 pm - Reply

    To negotiate Brexit in the immediate future is dumb, really dumb. Why? Because both thr French and Germans are winding up to their own elections, which may lead to a shift in power, and while occupied with this won’t play the best part in negotiations with Britain – in fact negotiations begun now might be scrapped or altered depending on who is in power in France and Germany later. So like I said: Triggering Brexit soon, certainly as soon as next March as May has claimed, is unwise to the point of foolishness because very little will get done until after the German and French general elections.

    • paulrutherford8 October 5, 2016 at 12:01 am - Reply

      And what would happen if May calls an election here before March?

      Perhaps the tories are making rapid assessments of Labour’s winning chances, and will call the election in the new year?

      I may be wrong, but then, if I was May and wanted rid of the responsibility…

      • Jezzabola October 5, 2016 at 6:06 pm - Reply

        If May called an election before March all the polls suggest she would strengthen her own position by winning a bigger Conservative majority. Unless enough of her own MPs get stroppy and rebellious and frustrate her agenda May has no reason to go to the country. Of course depending on the Brexit deal, e.g., were May to feel it necessary to offer concessions to the EU in order to remain in the single market, raising the heckles of enough Europhobes behind her on the back benches, she might end up in a lot of difficulty and feel that another general election might be necessary to shore up her position. Can’t see it happening in the near future though while everything remains unsettled and fluid.

        • Mike Sivier October 6, 2016 at 12:06 pm - Reply

          Don’t believe everything you see in the polls!

  6. Samuel Miller (@Hephaestus7) October 5, 2016 at 3:40 am - Reply

    The government is forced to delay invoking Article 50 because the civil service doesn’t have trade negotiators. See: The UK has no trade negotiators, says former Brexit minister — FT.com https://www.ft.com/content/bbbdf998-4a6c-11e6-8d68-72e9211e86ab.

    • Mike Sivier October 5, 2016 at 9:09 am - Reply

      Ye gods. They really weren’t prepared at all, were they?

  7. Zippi October 5, 2016 at 11:55 am - Reply

    I say, again. It was Call-Me-Dave’s responsibility to have an exit strategy BEFORE the referendum was offered. He did not. Why is nobody holding that man to account? Whether you wanted/ voted to leave, or to remain, that fact remains. How can you offer an in/ out referendum with no exit strategy in place? It was for nobody but Call-Me-Dave to have this organised; not Teresa May, not Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Andrea £eadsom, or any of the others. It was Call-Me-Dave’s decision to hold the referendum so, the responsibility os all his. Thus far, I see and hear nobody hauling that man over the coals for the almighty mess that he has created. It was wholly irresponsible of the man to to what he did and he needs to be made to answer for his ineptitude!

Leave A Comment