Brexit: ‘UK not leaving its EU heritage’ – envoy

The UK is leaving the EU but not leaving its partners, values or intetests about Europe, Permanent Representative to the UN, Amb. Matthew Rycroft, has said.

Rycroft, who made the remarks to the press on Wednesday at the UN headquarters in New York, said UK would continue to play its leading role in Europe.

The British Prime Minister, Theresa May, had on Wednesday morning, triggered Article 50 by writing a letter to the President of the European Council.

The letter set out how the UK will approach the negotiations over the next two years between the UK and the rest of the EU.

“We are leaving the EU but we are not leaving Europe, still less are we leaving the world stage.

“And as Theresa May made clear to the British Parliament earlier today, the UK will continue to be a power on foreign affairs, on security policy and on military issues.

“And as a permanent member of the Security Council, the UK will continue to play a leading role in this organisation, the United Nations, day in day out,” he said.

The British envoy said ‘Brexit’ would in no way influence the positions of the UK on any international topics.

“First of all the UK continues to be a member of the European Union for the next two years.

“And in that time we continue to be bound by our Lisbon Treaty obligations to represent common positions of the European Union.

“And to engage transparently with our colleagues from the EU, and we do that through the EU Heads of Missions meetings, which come round all too regularly.”

According to him, the UK will not suddenly change its values and intetests after leaving the EU but will continue to align with members countries.

“After the UK leaves the European Union, we will not be leaving Europe. We are not going to be suddenly changing our values or changing our interests.

“The UK will continue to be aligned, I’m sure, with our European partners and we want to see a strong Europe.

“We want to see the UK as a part of that strong Europe,” the UK Permanent Representative, who is the UN Security Council’s President for the month of March, said.