Britain’s OPEN for business: Bullish May to pitch leaders at first G20 meeting post-Brexit
A BULLISH Theresa May is to make her first major pitch to the leaders of the world’s biggest economies for them to set up trade deals with the UK post-Brexit.
May: Britain is open for business around the world
The future of trading relationships is the Prime Minister’s top priority as she attends her first major summit since taking office.
It will come up in bilateral discussions with President Obama, the Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as Mrs May being give a leading slot to discuss world trade at the first session of the summit.
After a week where Mrs May declared that she intends to press ahead with Brexit as fast as possible and not allow MPs a chance to vote it down or hold a second referendum, the Prime Minister intends to use her trip to China to start outlining her vision of Britain as a leading free trade nation.
Her confidence in selling Britain as a trading partner comes amid reports that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal between the EU and US is on the verge of collapse, meaning that Brexit is Britain’s best chance to have a trade deal with America.
It also follows expressions of interest in trade deals from at least 27 countries around the world with record manufacturing and employment figures this week underlining the stregth of the British economy.
In contrast to her overtures to world’s biggest nations she is set to snub EU leaders including Commission President Jean Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk.
A Downing Street source said: “This is a real opportunity for the Prime Minister to send a clear message to the world’s largest economies that Britain is keen to play a bold, confident and outward looking role.
“She will be very clear about the UK remaining open for business, that we will continue to be a strong and dependable partner.
May says there will be no second referendum on Brexit
This is a real opportunity for the Prime Minister to send a clear message
“We want to be a strong voice for international free trade and we will be looking at strengthening our relationships with partners around the world in the future.”
During the first session, in what the Chinese are calling “breaking a new path to growth”., Mrs May is set to be one of the leading speakers on growing the global economy..
The downing Street source said: “The Prime Minister will make one of the lead interventions longer to speak and she will be talking about how we see Britain post the referendum and the work that has been going on with Brexit.”
She added that there will be a “very clear message about being Britain being open for business.”
The Prime Minister will also emphasise that the Government wants “a smooth and orderly departure from the EU and stronger trading relations in the future.”
China to host G20 summit in September 2016
Asked if Mrs May will be making a pitch for post-Brexit trade deals, the Downing Street source said: “That is one of the issues that will be coming up. It is an issue that was discussed at Cabinet at Chequers on Wednesday the idea of what what does our new place in the world look like after we have left the EU? What are those relations like?
“We have already had discussions with a number of countries where they are interested in looking at what that relationship will be like and I think this will be ahn opportunity to start some conversations.”
It is expected that Mrs May will urge Mr Obama to rethink his claim that Britain would be “at the back of a queue” for a trade deal if it voted for Brexit with his country’s deal with the EU now on the verge of collapse.
She is also set to remind him that the UK is America’s closest ally and already a successful trading partner.
The briefing comes as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has laid out a positive vision of a new trading relationship with the EU which does not include free movement across British borders.
He said that Britain is seeking a "strong new European partnership" with the remaining 27 members of the EU after Brexit.
Mr Johnson said he wants the UK to continue to work with the EU on issues like migration following its withdrawal.
He was speaking in Vienna after talks with his Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz ahead of an informal gathering of EU foreign ministers which they were both attending later in Slovakian capital Bratislava.
"We are not leaving Europe, we are leaving the European Union," said Mr Johnson.
"We do want a strong EU but we also want a strong UK and I think we share a vision for a strong new European partnership between the UK and the EU and ever closer relations between Britain and Austria."
Mr Johnson said that Austria had been affected by the migration crisis of the past few years, adding: "One of the most important points I wanted to make is that we in the United Kingdom are very, very keen to continue to tackle that sort of issue together, whatever our relationship with the EU."
Mr Kurz said: "Our goal must be that we keep strong relations between the UK and the EU and strong relations between the UK and Austria."
The former London mayor revealed he was the "proud possessor" of a cow-bell presented to him by Austrian company Doppelmayr, which manufactured the Emirates Air Line cable car over the Thames.
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