Brexit will start in early 2017

In a Sky News interview today (22 September 2016), the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson) revealed that the government intends to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, and thereby formally starting the withdrawal of the UK from the EU, in “early” 2017.

In the interview he stated: “By the early part of next year you will see an Article 50 letter which we will invoke, and in that letter I am sure we will be setting out some parameters for how we propose to take this forward “.

Mr Johnson also hinted that the process of withdraw will not take two years to complete: “You invoke Article 50 in the early part of next year and you have two years to pull it off. I don’t actually think you need to spend the full two years, but let’s see how we go“.

He went on to state: “We are going to benefit from fantastic opportunities for free trade with our friends in the EU. Not only do we buy more German cars than anybody else, we drink more Italian wine than everyone else – they’re not going to put that at risk”

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