Leading Brexit campaigner and former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith claims members of the cabinet, including Theresa May, are keen to start the formal process of leaving the European Union early in 2017.

The former work and pensions secretary said article 50 of the Lisbon treaty should be triggered in the first quarter of the new year to provide focus and a two-year deadline for Brexit negotiations.



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Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Duncan Smith claimed key figures in the cabinet supported an early exit from the EU.

“I have spoken to them and I am certain that these characters – David Davis, Liam Fox and Boris Johnson, and the prime minister by the way – are very clear that they need to get on with triggering article 50 as soon as possible early in the new year.

“And that when we do that we will be bound on a course that means Britain will leave and I believe they are all very positive about the outcome that will entail: we will be out and we will do incredibly well.”

May is committed to withdrawing Britain from the EU, but she has not publicly stated a timescale for triggering article 50.

Duncan Smith called for urgency. “You need to get on with the process, because nothing focuses the mind more than the idea that something is going to happen. If you continue to say ‘we will wait’ all that happens is that the discussions don’t have any focus to them.

“It is the same with any negotiation you have done in your life – buying a house, getting a mortgage – you have to have an end point to this otherwise nobody focuses on what that means.”

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Meanwhile, a leading US economist said Britain’s better than expected financial performance since the referendum was partly because the markets believed Brexit would take years to complete.

Randy Kroszner, a former member of the US Federal Reserve and professor of economics at Chicago Booth School of Business, said there had been “a bit of hysteria about the short-run consequences of Brexit” in the run up to the referendum.

He told Today: “One of the reasons why we haven’t seen such negative consequences is that this is not going to happen anytime soon. It is going to be a long, gradual process and one that hopefully will be reasonably well thought out. And in those circumstances the negative impacts aren’t as great.”

Kroszner added: “There had been a lot of concern that there would be a lot of negative consequences, at least in the short run from Brexit, and at least internationally there is very little evidence of that. And even within the UK the stock market seems to have made it through this. Obviously the bond market has benefited from the action that the Bank of England has taken.”

Duncan Smith said the remain campaign’s warnings about the consequences of Brexit had proved to be wrong. “The prediction was that within weeks and months there would be dire consequences. I never believed that and I think the British consumer is much more sensible than that.”

Expanding on an article he wrote for the Sun on Sunday, Duncan Smith called for Britain to leave the single market.

“My personal view is that we should not seek to remain a member of the customs union, nor necessarily remain a full member of the single market, because that would entail putting yourself yet again under the rule of European law.”