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May Said to Set Out Brexit Vision to British Audience Next Week

May is preparing to set out her vision for the Brexit trade deal between the U.K. and the European Union next week.

May Said to Set Out Brexit Vision to British Audience Next Week
Theresa May, U.K. prime minister. (Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Theresa May is preparing to set out her vision for the Brexit trade deal between the U.K. and the European Union in a key speech next week, but her cabinet must first agree what she’ll say.

The prime minister is likely to present her plan at a venue in a region of the U.K. outside London, suggesting it could be aimed at winning over the domestic political audience as much as laying a path for the negotiations, according to people familiar with the matter.

Once the U.K. has a plan, officials will try to lobby their European counterparts to take Britain’s demands into account when drafting their own negotiating stance on the future relationship.

The proposed timing of the speech leaves little time to do that as EU leaders are due to sign off on their joint negotiating position at a summit on March 22 and early drafts will start circulating well before.

Negotiations are due to move to the future trade terms after that summit, with both sides aiming to map out a framework for the trade deal by October.

Details Please

On Monday, May’s spokesman James Slack said that would need to be a detailed document ready for signing, warning that a sketchy political declaration wouldn’t be good enough. EU officials have indicated that a detailed trade agreement won’t be completed until after the U.K. leaves the bloc, and the best Britain can hope for is a political declaration of intent.

“We wish to have the basis of our trade deal in place,” Slack told reporters in London.

Before she can draft her speech, May needs her most senior ministers to sign up to the main principles of a future trade accord with the bloc. Reaching a consensus is proving a tense and troubled process for May’s Cabinet, with talks between individual ministers going on this week.

The crucial meeting will happen when May’s Brexit committee of 11 cabinet ministers travels to her Chequers country house west of London on Thursday. They are likely to be told to stay there until they have agreed the broad parameters of the plan, officials said.

Some people inside the British government believe it’s unlikely that the cabinet committee will finalize its view on Thursday, suggesting the decision could be pushed back, potentially delaying May’s speech.

Vision Emerging

Senior officials say ministers now broadly agree on a plan to diverge gradually from the EU’s rulebook. The priorities for early changes to British regulations will be in agriculture, financial services and international trade, they said. The regulatory regime for manufactured goods is likely to remain closely aligned to the EU’s system for much longer.

The key arguments now are over how quickly different areas of the British economy should break from the rules of the European market, how the new regulations set up between London and Brussels should be policed, and how to resolve the Irish border issue.

May’s planned speech will be the fourth in a series of interventions she’s made setting out her aims for Brexit since January last year. It will follow speeches on Tuesday from euroskeptic cabinet ministers David Davis, Michael Gove and Liam Fox. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson outlined his own post-Brexit vision for a “global” Britain last week.

May’s previous speeches announcing key developments in her Brexit plans were in London, Florence and on Saturday in Munich.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Ross in London at tross54@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Emma Ross-Thomas

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.