The two-year countdown to Brexit has begun
It leaves Britain little time to get through a bulging, contentious agenda
BACK in October Theresa May promised to invoke Article 50, the legal procedure for leaving the European Union, by the end of March 2017. On March 29th the prime minister duly sent a six-page letter to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council of heads of EU governments. Article 50 sets in motion a negotiating process with a two-year time limit that can be extended only by unanimous agreement of all EU governments. Mrs May told Parliament this was a time for the country to come together. And in her letter she promised her European partners (seven times) that she wanted a “deep and special partnership” with the EU.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “A race against time”
Britain April 1st 2017
- The two-year countdown to Brexit has begun
- As it celebrates Brexit, UKIP loses its man in the Commons
- Want to challenge your unfair dismissal? That’ll be £1,200
- British Airways is turning into a no-frills airline
- An attack in London puts Birmingham’s Muslims in the spotlight
- Converts to Islam are likelier to radicalise than native Muslims
- How Brexit damaged Britain’s democracy
From the April 1st 2017 edition
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