Theresa May is to chair a meeting of her cabinet at Chequers to discuss the UK’s approach to leaving the EU and its objectives in future negotiations.
The prime minister and senior ministers are gathering to debate the way forward amid reports of tensions and diverging priorities among key figures.
Those present will include David Davis, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox, each of whose departments is focused on Brexit.
Mrs May has said talks with the rest of the EU will not begin this year.
BBC political correspondent Tom Bateman said Mrs May had asked every Cabinet minister before the summer break to identify what were described as the “opportunities” for their departments and she will now expect them to report back.
The prime minister has said the UK government will not trigger Article 50 – the official mechanism for beginning the process of separation – until the start of 2017 at the earliest.
From that moment, discussions over the terms of the UK’s exit will conclude in two years unless all 28 members of the EU agree to extend them.
‘Sooner the better’
The UK voted to leave the EU, by a margin of 51.9% to 48.1%, in a referendum on 23 June and Mrs May, who became prime minister in its aftermath, has insisted that “Brexit will mean Brexit”.
But the relationship the UK will have with the EU after its exit, in terms of access to the EU internal market and obligations in regard to freedom of movement, remains unclear.
Wednesday’s meeting at the prime minister’s country residence is being seen as an opportunity for Mrs May and senior colleagues to talk through many issues involved ahead of this weekend’s summit of G20 leaders in China.
The talks are being billed as the most significant since the referendum result and mark an end to the relative lull in proceedings over the summer recess – which ends on Monday.
Mrs May, who has held face-to-face talks with the leaders of Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Poland and Slovakia since taking office, has said time is needed to determine the UK’s strategy as a “sensible and orderly departure” is in the national interest.
But several senior Conservatives have warned against undue delay and said nothing should stand in the way of the UK triggering Article 50 as soon as possible next year.
Ex-Chancellor Lord Lawson, a leading Leave campaigner, said the UK should not try to negotiate a special trade deal with the EU, allowing it to remain within the single market, because it simply wasn’t on offer on acceptable terms and would hold the process up.
“As soon as you stop wasting time trying to negotiate the unnegotiable – some special trade deal with the EU – it is possible to have a relatively quick exit,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today.
“A prolonged period of uncertainty is bad for the economy and for British business. The sooner this is sorted out the better.”
Among those round the table with Mrs May will be Chancellor Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox and David Davis, Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.
‘Showing progress’
Mr Johnson, Mr Fox and Mr Davis are reported to have held private talks last week amid reports of early disagreements over the shape of a future Brexit settlement and departmental responsibility for trade issues.
Former Conservative minister Anna Soubry, who backed the UK remaining in the EU, said it was now up to the “three Brexiteers” to deliver the best deal for the British people.
“Boris Johnson, Liam Fox and David Davis – these are the people that have to show us the progress they have made, what Brexit is beginning to look like, what successes, difficulties or failures they have had,” she told Today.
Although she accepted the outcome of the referendum, Ms Soubry said she did not accept the British people had voted, in and of itself, for a cut in immigration or curbs on the right of EU citizens to live and work in the UK and more debate was needed.
“I am very liberal on immigration,” she told Today. “British business could not survive without access to that free movement of labour.”
The SNP, meanwhile, has accused the government of “breathtaking complacency” over a plan for Brexit and “making it up as they go along”.
Although MPs will have a say on the timing of talks there was no legal requirement to consult Parliament before Article 50 was activated, No 10 has said.
Downing Street has also confirmed that Mrs May will not hold a second referendum or an early general election to give voters the chance to sign off on any deal struck between the UK and the EU.
Chequers, an isolated 16th Century mansion 40 miles north-west of London, has played host to a number of historic occasions in the past 50 years and was one of Margaret Thatcher’s favourite locations to conduct high-level meetings and personal diplomacy.
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