LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Theresa May will promise to make Britain “a sovereign and independent country” by repealing the act that took it into what is now the European Union next year, she told the Sunday Times newspaper.
In an interview, May, appointed after Britain’s vote in June to leave the EU, said she would not wait for an election in Germany next September before triggering Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty to start formal divorce proceedings.
The former interior minister has been under pressure from EU officials, investors and members of her ruling Conservative Party to offer more detail on her plan for Britain’s exit, beyond her catch phrase “Brexit means Brexit”.
Speaking on the first day of her party’s annual conference today, May will hope to put some of the criticism to rest by pledging to overturn the 1972 European Communities Act, the law allowed the accession of Britain to the European Economic Community, which later became the European Union.
“We will introduce, in the next Queen’s speech, a Great Repeal Bill that will remove the European Communities Act from the statute book,” she told the newspaper, which said it should take place in April or May.
“This marks the first stage in the UK becoming a sovereign and independent country once again. It will return power and authority to the elected institutions of our country. It means that the authority of EU law in Britain will end.”
