Media wrongly interpreting Brexit views, says premier

Theresa May has suggested the media are responsible for a slump in the value of the pound by wrongly claiming her views about Britain leaving the EU equate to a hard Brexit.The prime minister was responding to a question about the negative market reaction to her comments on Sunday when she hinted that the UK would not be able to remain a full member of the European single market, but would instead have to negotiate a new trade deal.Asked if the markets were getting her vision of Brexit wrong, or if she was getting it wrong, May replied: “I am tempted to say that the people who are getting it wrong are those who print things saying I’m talking about a hard Brexit, it is absolutely inevitable it is a hard Brexit. I don’t accept the terms soft and hard Brexit,” she said.“What we are doing is going to get an ambitious, good and best possible deal for the United Kingdom in terms of trading with and operating within the European single market.”May stressed it would have to be a “new relationship” because Britain would no longer be a member of the EU.“We will be outside the European Union and therefore we will be negotiating a new relationship across not just trading but other areas with the European Union.”The comments came during her first speech of the year, which she used to flesh out her vision for a “shared society” first outlined on the steps of Downing Street.May said the time had come for a “new philosophy” of fairness and solidarity, arguing that Brexit was a once-in-a-generation chance to step back and decide what type of country Britain wanted to be.Many of her comments will be seen as being aimed in part at her Conservative predecessor, David Cameron, and other politicians, such as Tony Blair.In particular, May attacked the failure of “mainstream, centre-ground politics” to respond to public concerns in recent years, which had resulted in people turning to “the politics of division and despair”.“We see those fringe voices gaining prominence in some countries across Europe today – voices from the hard left and the far right stepping forward and sensing that this is their time.“But they stand on the shoulders of mainstream politicians who have allowed unfairness and division to grow by ignoring the legitimate concerns of ordinary people for too long.”She said centrist politicians had embraced the “great forces” of liberalism and globalisation but failed to understand that too many people on modest and low incomes saw those as things to be “concerned, not thrilled about”.The prime minister said she was talking about politicians who had supported an economic system that worked well for a privileged few but failed to ensure the prosperity was shared across the country. “Politicians who made the deals and signed the agreements that changed the nature of their country, but failed to listen to the public’s concerns – dismissing them as somehow parochial or illegitimate instead.”She said people were questioning whether globalisation was working for them when they were losing their jobs and watching their wages stagnate.“They come to a simple conclusion: that there is one rule for the rich and powerful and another for everyone else.”May said her government’s challenge was to show that centre-ground politics could deliver change, respond to concerns, and set things right.The prime minister outlined the key social injustices on which she wanted to focus: racial discrimination, the poor life chances for white working-class boys, gender inequality and difficulties for young people.She then focused her speech on new mental health policies which had been trailed over the weekend.“An estimated one in four of us has a common mental disorder at any one time. The economic and social cost of mental illness is £105bn – roughly the same as we spend on the NHS in its entirety,” she said, promising to focus in particular on children.May gave her speech exactly a year after Cameron delivered a major speech on the same subject, in which he pledged £1bn of extra funding for mental health. May did not provide additional funding on top of that, but offered a strengthened package on mental health, including piloting approaches within schools to identify and support children in need. The prime minister has also commissioned two reviews, one into services for young people and the other on well-being in the workplace.