Leadsom Says She’ll Work With Labour on Next Stage of Brexit
Leadsom Says She’ll Work With Labour on Next Stage of Brexit
(Bloomberg) --
Andrea Leadsom said she’d work with opposition Labour lawmakers to chart the U.K.’s future relationship with the European Union if she succeeds Theresa May as prime minister.
The last minister to quit May’s Cabinet before the premier announced her own resignation, Leadsom said Brexit must be delivered by the Oct. 31 deadline. Her aim is for a “managed exit” keeping the least controversial bits of May’s deal with Brussels, she said, conceding that if the EU rejects her approach, Britain would leave the bloc without agreement.
May’s successor will face the same hung Parliament, and Leadsom said she’d work with Labour backbenchers -- not the leadership -- to shape post-Brexit ties to the EU in a way that can win the support of the House of Commons. She also sees common ground on domestic issues, and ruled out calling a general election before 2022 to try to change the parliamentary arithmetic.
“I would seek the particular expertise of some of the Labour chairmen of select committees, for example, who I think could have a really good role to play,” Leadsom said in an interview Tuesday. “There’s a lot that we and the opposition parties can agree on about making our society more equal and more fair, investing in the very young, sorting out our social care policies for a generation, making a big offer to young people so that they can buy a home.”
Ballots
The Conservative Party aims to whittle down the candidates to a final pair in a series of ballots of Tory members of Parliament, starting on Thursday.
Leadsom -- who made the run-off against May in 2016 before pulling out -- is viewed as an outside chance, trailing the favorite, former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, as well as Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Environment Secretary Michael Gove and Home Secretary Sajid Javid.
Leadsom said she’d create four cross-party working groups after Brexit, seeking the help of “sensible” Labour MPs to work on a permanent solution to the Irish border, a free-trade deal with the EU, security arrangements and other areas of collaboration including space, medicines and education.
Leadsom said she would retain some elements of May’s existing deal, including the protection of EU citizens’ rights, the future of Gibraltar, air transportation arrangements and security.
Supply Chains
Leadsom said she’d seek a “temporary” free-trade deal -- potentially modeled on the EU-Japan agreement -- to preserve manufacturers’ supply chains. That would last for a year initially, she said, before a decision is made on extending it, brokering a different deal or moving to World Trade Organization terms.
The EU has repeatedly rejected the concept of a “managed no-deal Brexit” and ruled out mini deals. Leadsom said she’d boost preparations for a no-deal departure if the bloc refused, including measures to mitigate the impact on just-in-time supply chains.
But she doesn’t envisage that being the case.
“Pragmatic politicians in the EU and in the U.K. will want to support those measures,” she said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Thomas Penny
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