UK won’t be like ‘Mad Max’ after Brexit, minister says

Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON: The U.K. does not want to undermine the EU and it won’t be “plunged into a Mad Max-style world borrowed from dystopian fiction,” Brexit secretary said Tuesday.

In a speech delivered in the Austrian capital Vienna, David Davis said the U.K. will continue its “track record of meeting high standards” when it leaves the EU.

Responding to claims by the British opposition, including the Labour Party, that the U.K. will be turned into a “low-wage, offshore tax haven” with lowered industry standards, Davis said the claims are baseless.

“They fear that Brexit could lead to an Anglo-Saxon race to the bottom,” Davis said.

“With Britain plunged into a Mad Max-style world borrowed from dystopian fiction. These fears about a race to the bottom are based on nothing, not our history, not our intentions, not our national interest.”

Mad Max is a dystopian film series, which depict a dystopian future world where natural resources are scarce and gangs fight brutally each other for oil. The first Mad Max was released in 1979.

“But while I profoundly disagree with those who spread these fears — it does remind us all that we must provide reassurance.”

The U.K. is expected to set out what kind of a future trade deal it aims with the EU following Brexit, as the second round of negotiations will shape the future trade between the sides following the British departure.

The U.K. is set to leave the EU on 29 March 2019, but the sides are expected to agree on a transition period, which the EU says will end in Dec. 2020.

The EU previously said it would agree on a transition period as long as the U.K. is to follow all EU rules during such a period. The U.K. will also have to obey all the new rules the EU might bring during such a period, without having say in EU legislation processes after Brexit.

A deal on the terms of the proposed transition period is still to be agreed by the sides next month. (AA)