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Britain Gives up EU Single Market, Seeks Curbing Immigration | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May delivers a speech on leaving the European Union at Lancaster House in London, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Kirsty Wigglesworth/Pool


Cairo- Against all fears striking the heart of the labor sector in the United Kingdom, and the changes Brexit would inflict on its future, the pound sterling steadily improved as Prime Minister Theresa May made her Tuesday speech outlining the plan to exit the European Union.

May’s clear-cut roadmap, despite some challenges, was enough for Britain’s market to rocket.

The British Prime Minister laid out her plan pledging to put the deal up for a parliamentary vote, the UK will be heading for a clean split from the four decade-old EU. That was the message in London as May began to spell out just what Brexit will look like.

“Not partial membership of the European Union or anything that leaves us half in, half out. No, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union,” said May.

Although the UK will become disentangled from the bloc, meaning no longer will legitimize the European Court of Justice, Britain still risks its access to the EU’s vast internal market for goods and services and will instead try for a “bold and ambitious” free trade agreement (FTA), rejecting the kind of arrangements some other European countries, such as Norway and Switzerland, have for trade with the world’s biggest economic region.

In an effort to invigorate the future economy, May outlined 12 negotiating priorities, including limiting immigration, exiting jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, and ending full membership of the customs union that sets external tariffs for goods imported into the bloc.

More so, the Prime Minister told the heads of Germany and France that Britain would not stay in the single market and insisted that controlling and curbing migration was a red line.

Laying out her guiding principles once she triggers the two-year article 50 process for leaving the EU in March, May underlined the need to provide certainty and clarity to business, while delivering a “stronger, fairer, truly global Britain.”

She said the British people voted for Brexit “with their eyes open.”