Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2017-06-14-Speech-3-021-000"
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"en.20170614.5.3-021-000"2
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"Mr President, I know that a lot of the people here are very pleased with the result of the UK general election and view it as a victory for the EU. Let me give you a sense of perspective: in the 2015 general election, just 13% of voters voted for parties – namely UKIP, which was the only one – that wanted to leave the European Union. Last Thursday, over 85% of British voters voted for parties on a manifesto not just of leaving the European Union, but of leaving the single market as well. In fact, on the morning of the general election, 70% of the British public – whichever way they had voted in the referendum – simply wanted the government to get on and complete and conclude Brexit.
I know that Theresa’s terrible campaign has cast a bit of doubt on this, and I saw that Emmanuel Macron yesterday – a call echoed by Mr Verhofstadt this morning – said that there is still time for the United Kingdom to change its mind; that it does not have to leave. Let me tell you that the only certainty in this mess is that we will be leaving. But that has not stopped a parade of former prime ministers and of former European Commissioners from lining up and attempting to get the British Government to backslide on its commitments. There is now a big push, a big drive, for us to opt for a Norway-style option, and I have to confess that your chief negotiator, Mr Barnier, is right: it took Theresa May nine months to trigger Article 50, and by the time the talks start it will be nearly four months since it was triggered, so I do accept that we go into this, as a British Government, with a British Prime Minister in a very weak position. And she is caught in a bit of a pincer movement, because the political class would like us to stay in the customs union and to stay in the single market, but the people have made it perfectly clear they want us to leave both of those things. And I would say this: that unless Theresa May – and it is difficult for her, because she never really believed in Brexit – stands up at the summit next week, in those negotiations, and makes it absolutely clear that she is not giving an inch – that we are leaving the single market – then her own party will get rid of her, and then yet more time will be lost in the Article 50 process."@en1
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