British PM Cameron warns Parliament not to try to block Brexit

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said there should be no attempt in Parliament to block Britain's departure from the European Union following the country's vote to leave the bloc.

>>Reuters
Published : 27 June 2016, 07:08 PM
Updated : 27 June 2016, 07:42 PM

Cameron told Parliament on Monday that the Brexit vote must be respected and that the decision on when to trigger the formal "Article 50" exit process was a decision for "Britain alone".

"There can be no doubt about the result ... I am clear, and the cabinet agreed this morning, that the decision must be accepted," Cameron told Parliament, which also faces a public petition for a new referendum.

"The British government will not be triggering Article 50 at this stage ... this is our sovereign decision and it will be for Britain, and Britain alone, to take," he said.

With the ruling Conservatives looking for a new leader after Prime Minister Cameron's resignation on Friday and lawmakers from the opposition Labour party stepping up a rebellion against their leader, Britain sank deeper into political and economic chaos.

"There's no political leadership in the UK right when markets need the reassurance of direction," said Luke Hickmore of Aberdeen Asset Management, expressing the view of many in the City of London financial centre.

Cameron says he will stay on until October as a caretaker and that his successor should trigger the formal process of leaving the EU. His Conservative Party in Parliament recommended choosing a successor by early September.

The prime minister sought to calm fears over the fallout of the referendum and said Parliament should not try to block Britain's departure. A majority of parliamentarians, like him, had argued that Britain should stay in the EU.

But his refusal to start formal moves to pull the country out of the EU has prompted many European leaders to demand quicker action by Britain, the EU's second largest economy after Germany, to leave the 28-country bloc.

"It should be implemented quickly. We cannot remain in an uncertain and indefinite situation," French finance minister Michel Sapin said on France 2 television.

Guenther Oettinger, a German member of the EU's executive European Commission, said delay would hurt Europe as well as Britain. "Every day of uncertainty prevents investors from putting their funds into Britain, and also other European markets," he told Deutschlandfunk radio.

Cameron will join EU leaders for dinner in Brussels on Tuesday, the eve of an EU summit from which Britain will be excluded. EU lawmakers want him to announce Britain's departure then, but a senior EU official said that was unrealistic.

Merkel has "no brake, no accelerator"

While European leaders would like swift negotiations to end the uncertainty, which is fuelling eurosceptic forces in their own countries, they say they cannot begin until Britain formally notifies the EU it is planning to exit.

The leaders of France, Germany and Italy met in Berlin on Monday to plan their next moves and said Europe needed to respond to its people's concerns by setting clear goals to improve security, the economy and prospects for young people.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has appeared to take a softer line on Britain's decision than some European leaders, said she had "neither a brake nor an accelerator" to control events, adding: "We just don't want an impasse".

Making clear the exit negotiations would not be easy, Volker Kauder, who leads Merkel's conservatives in parliament, told ARD television: "There will be no special treatment, there will be no gifts."

The shockwaves are being felt across the globe at a time when economies are still fragile from the 2008 economic crisis, interest rates are close to zero and central banks have fewer tools than normal to revive demand if countries enter recession.

Financial markets misjudged the referendum, betting on the status quo despite abundant signs that the vote would be close.

When reality dawned, the reaction was brutal. Sterling fell as much as 11 percent against the dollar on Friday for its worst day in modern history, while $2.8 trillion was wiped off the value of world stocks - the biggest daily loss ever.

By Monday afternoon, sterling had shed around 3.6 percent against the dollar to $1.3209, despite an attempt by Osborne to ease concerns by saying he was working closely with the Bank of England and officials in other leading economies.