London - Theresa May shrugged off warnings from the European Union’s eastern members that they’ll veto a Brexit deal, saying that it’s in everyone’s interests to reach an agreement.
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Minister Konrad Szymanski said on Monday that his country won’t support a deal that’s not “balanced”. That came after Slovak prime minister Robert Fico said his country, along with Hungary, Poland and the Czechs were ready to block any deal which gave Britain access to the EU single market while ending the right of their citizens to move to the UK.
Even her Brexit Secretary, David Davis, last week said there was a chance Britain could leave the EU without reaching a trade agreement. But when asked about this possibility, May was blunt.
“The 27 will sign up to a deal with us,” she said en route to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. “We will be negotiating with them. And as I say we will be ambitious in what we want to see for the UK. A good deal for the UK can also be a good deal for the other member states. I believe in good trading relations.”
UN debut
May is due to address the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. According to extracts of the speech released by her office, she’ll argue that the Brexit vote didn’t represent a retreat from the world. British people, she’ll say, “did not vote to turn inwards or walk away from any of our partners”.
However, she’ll warn that people want “a politics that is more in touch with their concerns, and bold action to address them”.
Dwelling on one of the key drivers of the Brexit vote, she told the UN on Monday that it needs to do more to bring down the flow of migrants from poor countries to rich ones.
Amazon, Goldman
The UK leader, in power for less than three months, will also use her stay in the US financial capital to meet with representatives of some of the country’s top companies and reassure them that Brexit shouldn’t be a reason to pull investment from the UK. Many US businesses find the UK an attractive home base for their European operations, but the country’s withdrawal from the world’s biggest trading bloc could jeopardise that.
“Something like a million people in the UK wake up each morning and then go to work for an American company,” May said. “I will be talking to them and hearing from them what their emphasis is in terms of the issues they want us to address.”
May’s first business meeting is expected to be with senior executives from companies including Amazon.com, Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley, International Business Machines, BlackRock, and United Technologies Corporation. Subsequently, there will be an evening reception for about 60 business leaders.
Boris coming
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is travelling with May - but not trade secretary Liam Fox, who earlier this month told supporters that British businesses were too “fat and lazy” to be successful exporters. Asked about those comments, May gave a diplomatic answer.
“We all put things in different ways,” she said. “What Liam is doing is encouraging businesses to export which is an important part of his role as trade secretary.”
May is under pressure to maintain London’s stature as a centre of finance. The city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, warned on Sunday that access to the EU single market is “crucial” to the capital’s continued success. That has been the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, but people familiar with his thinking said on Friday that he has accepted this may be an impossible task. May refused to air her own views.
“We’re going to get the right deal for the UK,” she said.
BLOOMBERG