EU leaders push UK to exit as soon as possible

LONDON — European politicians yesterday pressed Britain to launch the formal process of leaving the European Union, while new rifts have emerged in the nation’s politics, underscoring a sense of drift on all sides after the shock of last week’s referendum.

The departure of Britain will increase the prominence of Germany, already Europe’s most prosperous and populous country, and put pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel to navigate a peaceful split.

The four largest political groups in the European Parliament are planning a motion to urge Britain to leave as quickly as possible and “avoid damaging delay”, according to deputies cited in the Sunday edition of The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. The Parliament’s president, Mr Martin Schulz of Germany, appealed in his country’s largest-circulation newspaper, Bild, for swift negotiation of Britain’s departure.

“Hesitating simply to accommodate the party tactics of the British Conservatives hurts everyone,” he said.

“That is why we expect the British government to now deliver. The summit on Tuesday is the right time.”

That echoed European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, who over the weekend called for immediate negotiations.

“It doesn’t make any sense to wait until October to try and negotiate the terms of their departure,” he said of the British, whose Prime Minister, Mr David Cameron, said on Friday that he would resign and leave all negotiations to his successor, who would be chosen by October.

The jockeying for prominence in Britain will play out in coming weeks among Mr Cameron’s Conservatives, as well as in the opposition Labour Party and the UK Independence Party, which pushed for a British exit from the bloc. Already yesterday, internal dissent within Labour led to the firing of its spokesman for foreign affairs and the resignation of the spokeswoman on health matters as party leader Jeremy Corbyn tried to head off a revolt by some lawmakers disappointed with his lacklustre campaign to keep Britain in the bloc.

As Westminster politicians bickered, Scotland appeared to be moving closer towards independence, just two years after they voted by 55 per cent to stay in the UK. “The UK that Scotland voted to stay in in 2014 does not exist any more,” said First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to BBC television yesterday, adding that Scotland will do whatever it takes to remain in the EU, including potentially blocking legislation on a British exit from the bloc.

Scots had defied the national trend and voted to remain in the EU, and the prospect of being taken out against their will has boosted the nationalist cause. Two polls put support for independence at 59 per cent and 52 per cent, respectively.

Mr Cameron is due to attend a summit of EU leaders tomorrow to explain Britain’s decision to cast aside warnings of isolation and economic disaster in voting 52 per cent to 48 per cent in favour of quitting the EU in Thursday’s referendum. Stock markets around the world plunged in the wake of the referendum while the sterling’s value also plummeted.

China’s Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said yesterday that Brexit has heightened market uncertainty and “will cast a shadow over the global economy”.

“The repercussions and fallout will emerge in the next five to 10 years,” said Mr Lou in Beijing. “It’s difficult to predict now,” he said. “The knee-jerk reaction from the market is probably a bit excessive and needs to calm down and take an objective view.”

United States Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday urged Britain and the EU to manage their divorce responsibly for the sake of global markets and citizens, a day before he was to visit London and Brussels. “The most important thing is that all of us, as leaders, work together to provide as much continuity, as much stability, as much certainty as possible,’’ said Mr Kerry as he met in Rome with Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

To begin the withdrawal process, Britain must invoke Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon treaty, which has never been used before.

Ms Merkel said on Saturday “it shouldn’t take forever” for Britain to start the formal process of leaving. “I would not fight over a short period of time,” she told a news conference, adding that “there is no need to be particularly nasty in any way in the negotiations”. In keeping with Germans’ penchant for order, she said that the important thing was that talks “must be conducted properly”.

Ms Merkel has scheduled meetings today in Berlin, first with Mr Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, and then over dinner with the leaders of France and Italy. Tomorrow, she will first address a special session of Parliament in Berlin and then go to Brussels for the first meeting of all European leaders since the British referendum. In more than a decade in power, Ms Merkel has risen calmly to crises, whether over the euro currency or Russia’s grab for territory in Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014.

But there are few guidelines for how the Continent — and Britain — should proceed in the unprecedented event of a country’s leaving the 28-member European Union. “Merkel has basically taken an approach of ‘We shouldn’t rush’, and is looking at things calmly — which is very much her style,” said Ms Daniela Schwarzer, the director of the Europe programme at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.

By consulting with key European leaders before the summit meeting in Brussels tomorrow or on Wednesday, said Ms Schwarzer, the chancellor is trying to mould a united and clear response to the stunning British vote.

Ms Merkel’s chief of staff, Mr Peter Altmaier, said he had seen “absolutely no indication” of a swift negotiation with the British. “I would rather tend to the view that this application will be made in the next weeks or months, possibly only by a new government,” Mr Altmaier told the public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. AGENCIES