Exclusive:
what Theresa May really thinks about Brexit shown in leaked recording
Secret
audio of Goldman Sachs talk in May shows she feared businesses would
leave and wanted the UK to take a lead in Europe
Nick Hopkins and
Rowena Mason
Wednesday 26 October
2016 07.20 BST
Theresa May
privately warned that companies would leave the UK if the country
voted for Brexit during a secret audience with investment bankers a
month before the EU referendum.
A recording of her
remarks to Goldman Sachs, leaked to the Guardian, reveals she had
numerous concerns about Britain leaving the EU. It contrasts with her
nuanced public speeches, which dismayed remain campaigners before the
vote in June.
Speaking at the bank
in London on 26 May, the then home secretary appeared to go further
than her public remarks to explain more clearly the economic benefits
of staying in the EU. She told staff it was time the UK took a lead
in Europe, and that she hoped voters would look to the future rather
than the past.
In an hour-long
session before the City bankers, she also worried about the effect of
Brexit on the British economy.
“I think the
economic arguments are clear,” she said. “I think being part of a
500-million trading bloc is significant for us. I think, as I was
saying to you a little earlier, that one of the issues is that a lot
of people will invest here in the UK because it is the UK in Europe.
“If we were not in
Europe, I think there would be firms and companies who would be
looking to say, do they need to develop a mainland Europe presence
rather than a UK presence? So I think there are definite benefits for
us in economic terms.”
Her warning about
the importance of the UK’s membership of the EU comes in marked
contrast to her positioning in recent weeks.
May said at the
Conservative party conference that she wanted to prioritise reducing
immigration over being part of the single market. In her speech, she
said British companies needed the “maximum freedom to trade and
operate in the single market” but not at the expense of “giving
up control of immigration again” or accepting the jurisdiction of
judges in Luxembourg.
At Goldman Sachs,
May also said she was convinced Britain’s security was best served
by remaining in Europe because of tools such as the European arrest
warrant and the information-sharing between the police and
intelligence agencies.
“There are
definitely things we can do as members of the European Union that I
think keep us more safe,” she said.
The disclosures
could prove embarrassing for the prime minister, who faced criticism
for lying low during the referendum campaign and offering only
luke-warm support for the remain side.
In April, May gave a
speech in which she set out some of the reasons for staying in the
EU, warning that it could have an impact on the development of the
single market for the rest of the EU if the UK left. But her comments
at the Goldman Sachs event a month later go further in warning about
the dangers to the British economy from businesses relocating to
continental Europe.
During the
referendum campaign, May infuriated senior Conservative colleagues on
the remain side by largely staying out of the day-to-day arguments in
favour of staying in the EU. One of her major pro-remain
interventions was overshadowed by an announcement that she would like
to take the UK out of the European convention on human rights, which
she quickly ditched when running for the party leadership.
Her refusal to
participate much in the campaign led Craig Oliver, David Cameron’s
former chief of communications, to wonder if she was secretly an
“enemy agent” for the other side. However, others have suggested
she believed in the arguments for staying in but was keeping her
powder dry in case of a pro-Brexit vote.
May went to Goldman
Sachs as a guest speaker and answered questions from the floor. In
relaxed exchanges, she praised Cameron, the then prime minister, and
said he had returned with important concessions from his EU summit
earlier in the year.
She sidestepped a
question about whether she wanted to be prime minister and focused on
explaining why Britain should stay in the EU. May said: “That is
one of my messages in terms of the issue of the referendum, actually
we shouldn’t be voting to try to recreate the past, we should be
voting for what is right for the future.”
Goldman Sachs
confirmed May had spoken to staff but was not paid. She accepted an
invitation as part of the bank’s Talks@GS programme, in which high
achievers from all walks of like are given a chance to reflect on
their experiences and answer questions.
Previous speakers in
the series include double Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes, David
Benioff, the co-creator of the Game of Thrones TV series, and Loyd
Grossman, the man behind the eponymous sauces. Some of the speakers
are listed online, although May is not.
In the US, the
Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, made three
private speeches to Goldman Sachs staff in 2013, the contents of
which she originally refused to divulge during a bitter primary
contest with leftwing rival Bernie Sanders. She was paid $675,000
(£554,000), and transcripts eventually released by WikiLeaks show
her taking a much softer line on Wall Street than she had publicly
claimed.
Introduced in her
private session at the bank as the “longest-serving home secretary
this century”, May spoke in much more explicit terms than ever
before about the need for the UK to act from the front in Europe.
“What I do think
is that the UK needs to lead in Europe,” she said. “I think over
the years the UK has tended to take a view that Europe is something
that is done to us, we have taken a rather backseat position to
Europe, I think that when we go out there, when we can take the
initiative and when we lead, we can achieve things. So I do think we
need to make sure we are taking the lead.”
She dismissed
concerns of senior figures in the military who had claimed that the
EU “was making life more difficult for soldiers”.
“Actually very
often when people talk about it I suspect, and I haven’t spoken to
them, I suspect that they are not talking about the European Union,
but the European convention on human rights and the European court of
human rights, which is separate from the European Union.”
Tim Farron, the Lib
Dem leader, said it was “disappointing that Theresa May lacked the
political courage to warn the public as she did a bunch of bankers in
private about the devastating economic effects of Brexit”.
He added: “More
disappointing is that now she is supposedly in charge, she is
blithely ignoring her own warnings and is prepared to inflict an act
of monumental self-harm on the UK economy by pulling Britain out of
the single market.”
Phil Wilson, a
Labour MP speaking for the Open Britain group campaigning for the UK
to stay in the single market, said: “It’s good to know that
privately Theresa May thinks what many of us have been saying
publicly for a long time – leaving the single market would be bad
for businesses and for our economy.
“Now she is prime
minister, Theresa May is in an unrivalled position to act on her
previous concerns – starting by putting membership of the single
market at the heart of her government’s negotiating position.”
Chuka Umunna, the
Labour MP and former shadow business secretary, said May was “right
then – and it underlines why single market membership should be her
ambition now”.
A No 10 spokesman
said: “Britain made a clear choice to vote to leave the EU and this
government is determined to make a success of the fresh opportunities
it presents.
“David Davis made
very clear in the House of Commons last week the importance the
government places on financial services across the UK in the
negotiation to come, as has the chancellor in recent weeks.
“We want a smooth
and orderly exit from the European Union, which would be in the
interests of both Britain and the EU.”
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