Labour Party wants Britain stay in EU’s single-market

­­­­­­­­­­­Bloomberg

The UK’s opposition Labour Party wants Britain to stay in the European Union’s single market for an extended period after it leaves the bloc, a shift in its position that could undermine PM Theresa May’s efforts to deliver her vision of Brexit.
The proposal, which would mean no additional customs or migration controls in March 2019, would allow more time to finalise details of the UK’s departure, and give government and business time to prepare, Labour’s Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer said. It would also eliminate the need to negotiate a transitional arrangement at the same time as a final deal.
“There would be no need to set up complex alternative customs or trading relations,” Starmer wrote in the Observer newspaper on Sunday. “It is a grown-up acknowledgment that bespoke transitional arrangements are highly unlikely to be negotiated, agreed and established in the next 18 months.”
If Labour can force a parliamentary vote in support of its position, it will put pressure on Conservative lawmakers who oppose leaving the single market to fall in behind it. Legislation that seeks to prepare Britain for leaving the EU returns next month to Parliament, where May doesn’t have a majority, and lawmakers are expected to battle over amendments.
Starmer was clear that Labour remains committed to implementing Brexit. He also said his party wanted to see a final settlement that allowed the UK “more effective management of migration”—something that would make permanent membership of the single market difficult. And he emphasized that he saw the transition as time-limited. “It cannot become a kind of never-ending purgatory,” he said.
Instead, he said Labour remained open to “negotiating a new single market relationship” or “working up from a bespoke trade deal.”
Some Labour lawmakers are pressing for more. A new group, Labour Campaign For The Single Market, will be unveiled, pushing to get the party policy changed to supporting continued single-market membership. Business leaders overwhelmingly support continued membership, while several prominent Conservative lawmakers have defied May to speak publicly of their support for ongoing single-market membership.
“Labour is now the party of soft Brexit,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst at Eurasia Group.

PM May attacks ‘unacceptable’
excess in UK corporate crackdown
Bloomberg

Theresa May attacked highly paid UK executives as the “unacceptable face of capitalism” in an article she wrote for the Mail on Sunday as part of her crackdown on corporate governance.
“A minority of firms are falling short of the high standards we expect of them. Some have deliberately broken rules that are designed to protect their workers,” the UK prime minister wrote in the newspaper. “Others have ignored the concerns of their shareholders by awarding pay rises to bosses that far outstrip the company’s performance.”
The names of firms that have faced shareholder protests about salaries will be published on a new register by the end of the year, she wrote.
Other measures will be announced this week. Excess risks undermining public confidence and “damaging the social fabric” of the nation, May wrote.
While the prime minister came to power last year promising to rewrite the rules of capitalism, her plans have been scaled back after she lost her parliamentary majority in the June general election she called. Workers’ voices should be “properly heard” in the boardroom, May wrote.