The United Kingdom government on Thursday published a document containing details of its plan to exit the European Union. Prime Minister Theresa May, who unveiled the white paper in Parliament, promised to push through her plan to keep Britain closely tied to the European Union’s single market after Brexit, Bloomberg reported.
The plan, however, had met with protests in the House of Commons, AFP reported. Two senior ministers in May’s Cabinet – former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit Secretary David Davis – resigned on Monday just two days after the prime minister held a crisis meeting with her colleagues to overcome the deep divisions over Britain’s exit from the bloc.
The government’s policy paper says that businesses should be able to move talented people from the United Kingdom to the European Union and vice versa, The Guardian reported. The 98-page document also states that the government is prepared to allow European Union citizens to travel freely without a visa in the United Kingdom for tourism and temporary work and allow European Union students to study in the country.
Though the document says that the government will end free movement of people between the European Union and Britain after December 2020, when the transition ends, it also acknowledges that it will be necessary to recognise the “depth of the relationship and close ties between the peoples of the UK and the EU”.
Political leaders, who are seeking even stricter rules, have voiced their concerns about commitment to end free movement, pointing out that the bloc’s citizens will still have preferential access to the United Kingdom compared to other countries.
The government, which has not provided details on how migration arrangements will work after Brexit, has promised to bring out a white paper on the subject in the next few months.
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