Former European Union Parliament member Joseph Muscat insisted that the United Kingdom must remain under European law during the Brexit transition. However British government disagrees.
Muscat, who is now the Prime Minister of Malta asserted that during the separation process, U.K. is still under the jurisdiction of European Court of Justice according to The Guardian. He said that the transition period is necessary for UK businesses to retain access to the European single market. This proposed transition period will take five years since 2019 when the first phase of withdrawal completed.
He first said his remark early January, saying that remaining under European judicial system will be beneficial for Britain to smoothen the separation process.
However, this will become a major hurdle for the British sovereignty as it makes EU have control over British legal system. In a political point of view, such proposal will be a hurdle for Prime Minister Theresa May to fulfill her campaign promise. She vowed to make U.K. a fully sovereign nation and free from the European Union before the general election in 2020.
British Prime Minister May has already declared that she would take the hard way to exit the EU rather than taking the bad deal. In her speech at Lancaster House after Muscat's remark, she said that "no deal is better than a bad deal."
Prime Minister May also understands that unity among EU members is superficial. For that reason, her government approaches former Communist states in central and eastern Europe to take side with U.K. in Brexit deal as reported by Bloomberg. She gives higher status, political and lobbying staffs to British ambassador to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia, and Slovakia.
Regardless of speculation about hard Brexit, the government white paper published Thursday, Feb. 2 after Parliamentary approval, the British government will seek a cordial separation process from the EU as reported by Euronews below:
