Skip to main content

To: Theresa May

UK to remain a member of the single market when it leaves EU

To negotiate to ensure that when UK leaves EU, we remain a member of the European single market.

UK should build on our current membership of EEA to secure single market membership on Norway terms.

The Conservative party should honour its 2015 manifesto, which promised the referendum but said "'Yes to the single market". That should mean full membership of the single market, not just "access to the single market'.

Why is this important?

This is the best, possibly the only way of limiting the damage to both UK and EU27 economies from leaving the EU while keeping open the door to re-entering the EU some time in the future.
Continued membership of the single market would:
1. minimise the damage to the economy, and trade-related loss of jobs, resulting from leaving the EU;;
2. avoid the years of disruption to trade while UK seeks to negotiate new trade agreements with the EU which could never be an adequate substitute for a single market anyway; while freeing UK to negotiate its own trade agreements with other countries;
3. reduce the diversion of FDI (direct investment from overseas) to other member states, in sectors like manufacturing,, pharmaceuticals and services;
4. ensure that City based financial services groups will still be able to passport their services into the EU;
5. so far as possible, retain some freedom of movement for labour, and protect visa free and work permit free access to the rest of Europe (and for other EU nationals to work here) - though this may have to be qualified if it is to be agreed;
6. minimise the need for controls at the Northern Ireland / Republic border, since though NI will be outside the EU, both countries will be in the single market;
7. make it less likely that Scotland will vote to leave UK in order to protect its position in the EU, thus hopefully reducing the prospects of that becoming an EU external border with all the checks and controls which would be inevitable;
8. restore some confidence in the financial markets;
9. Help to ensure continued protection for workers' rights
10. Ensure the retention of many of the regulations and directives which have helped to protect and enhance the environment in UK and EU over the past 42 years; and
most of all,
11. offer some hope for the future that when the time is right, we can negotiate re-entry without having to go through the full accession procedures.

Updates

2017-06-12 09:24:32 +0100

25 signatures reached

2016-08-29 03:07:43 +0100

10 signatures reached