Britain’s economy will have a ‘better future’ outside the EU, Theresa May said yesterday.
In an upbeat assessment, the Prime Minister said she was determined to confound the doomsayers, including some in her own government, who claim leaving the EU will inevitably damage the economy.
Speaking to reporters on a trip to China, Mrs May took a thinly-veiled swipe at Chancellor Philip Hammond, saying people ‘did not vote for nothing to change when we come out of the EU’.
The Prime Minister said after leaving the EU, Britain well-placed to embrace emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence
It came as Jean-Claude Juncker gave his strongest admission yet that the EU could be forced to cave in to UK demands for a comprehensive trade deal.
Despite previously advocating a hard-line approach, he said that Brussels would have to grant Britain ‘extras’ amid pressure from the business not to harm trading links.
Mrs May backed Remain in the 2016 referendum and has repeatedly refused to say how she would vote now, saying only that she would look at the evidence.
But, with Britain’s departure from the EU now just over a year away, she outlined a strikingly upbeat vision of our future outside.
Mrs May said leaving the EU would leave Britain well-placed to embrace emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence. And she said the UK would be free to strike new trade deals with fast-growing economies outside Europe.
She added: ‘Yes at the time of the referendum I voted Remain, but I also said the sky wasn’t going to fall in if we left the EU, and as people will see from the economic figures we have seen actually that has indeed proved to be the case.
‘I believe that outside the EU we can not only project that global Britain but I believe we can see a better future for our economy.’
Mr Hammond infuriated Eurosceptic MPs last week when he suggested Brexit would lead to only ‘very modest’ changes. Several MPs called publicly for him to be sacked.
Mr Hammond faced called for him to be sacked after infuriating Eurosceptic MPs when he suggested Brexit would lead to only ‘very modest’ changes
But Mrs May said she was determined to deliver on the result of the referendum – and bring real change to Britain.
She added: ‘We are in Government. The next general election is not until 2022. What we’re doing now is doing the job that the British people asked the Government to do which is to deliver on Brexit. They want us to do that but in doing that they did not they did not vote for nothing to change when we come out of the EU.’
The EU has indicated that the UK will only be offered a limited free trade agreement, which Mrs May has insisted does not match the UK’s expectations.
While the bloc has so far boasted about its ‘unity’ on Brexit, Mr Juncker said that Brussels may have to make unexpected concessions to the UK that he said would leave ‘Europe a mess’.
He said: ‘The first step of the negotiations of Brexit was the easiest, even if it was difficult.
‘We remain together, however it will be more difficult to keep together the 27 EU member states during the second step of the negotiations.
He added: ‘The economic industries, the multinationals, will try to convince their respective governments to say yes to this or that British proposal and in the end we’ll have several extras, several exceptions that will make Europe a mess.’
He said that talks would be ‘complex’ in private and said the EU wanted to ‘make the UK a privileged partner’.
Jean-Claude Juncker has admitted the EU will be forced to cave in to UK demands for a comprehensive trade deal
However, the Brussels chief also used an address in Brussels to heap pressure on the Prime Minister by telling her that the UK has to ‘respect its own decision to leave’.
He added: ‘The UK decided to leave the EU – Brexit means Brexit. We need to make sure we can end these negotiations in a proper way.’
The intervention will be seen as a thinly-veiled attack on Tory in-fighting over their plans for a trade deal with Europe.
Mr Juncker added: ‘I am deconstructing Europe at the moment because the British people asked me too and I am not happy about that.’
Last night Mrs May faced fresh criticism from a member of her Brexit war Cabinet who anonymously briefed the Spectator that the government’s Brexit policy-making ‘looks worse from the inside than the outside’. The group of senior ministers includes Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Environment Secretary Michael Gove.
The membership of Mrs May’s Brexit war Cabinet is: Chancellor Philip Hammond, Home Secretary Amber Rudd, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Brexit Secretary David Davis, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, Business Secretary Greg Clarke, Environment Secretary Michael Gove, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Cabinet Office minister David Lidington.