What is the new vision for the United Kingdom and Europe after the UK leaves the European Union?

Until a few days ago, many were still unclear as to what Brexit actually meant, but this week Theresa May spelt it out, making it clear that it meant an exit from the single market.

The key challenge now, says Philip Hammond, UK Chancellor, is the time frame.

He is confident, however, that UK and EU can reach a mutually beneficial agreement, not least because uncertainty hurts business and economies on both sides of the channel.

“We’ve been in our separate siloes hurling verbal rocks at each other and avoiding the real issue,” he says. “Now we’ve set out an agenda which allows this to become a shared issue to be solved. I’m confident our key interlocutors in the EU do see this as an issue to work on together."

“My hope is that, after we serve the notice, we will start to engage with our EU interlocutors in a discussion that will be constructive, and it will become clear quickly that there is a shared ambition to get to an end state, which means maximising reciprocal access to each other’s markets," he explains.

But Mario Monti, President of Bocconi University, believes that the medium and long-term consequences for Brexit are negative.

However, he also believes that the actions of David Cameron will force other European leaders to be more circumspect.

"David Cameron was different from the others but only in terms of magnitude. Most leaders do play the game for domestic purposes, extracting what they can from the EU in order to gain domestic support. But David Cameron did this to an untold level," he states.

Ngaire Woods, Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford believes that completing the “divorce” in the two-year time frame will be really hard: “If I was being flip I'd say it’s hard to get a train ticket reimbursed within a year in the EU,” she quips.

“The UK government's problem is that, within their own political party, not everyone takes that view, and that creates a non-constructive tone," she adds.

The knowledge economy

For Britain to succeed in a global economy, "which it can,” adds Woods, “it needs to be right at the forefront of the knowledge economy. It has four of the best universities in the world, and this is a magnet for companies around the world," she argues.

But Jes Staley, CEO of Barclays, is more upbeat, saying that neither the UK or the EU will cut the free flow of capital and London's position as a financial capital is secure.

“Its ecosystem is so complex it’s not going to be determined by one bank saying we’re going to move 1,000 people here or 1,000 there," adds Staley.

He goes onto explain how Barclays has a hugely diverse workforce, and that: "One of the successes of Barclays and of the City of London has been an acceptance of us bringing in talent, wherever they come from. I don’t get a sense that the British people in any way want that sort of activity to be curtailed."

Philip Hammond agrees, adding that "there is no system I can conceive that will cut off highly skilled people or students wanting to learn."

What about the status of EU citizens living in the UK?

“We’ve been very clear about the 3.2 million EU nationals in the UK,” asserts Hammond. “They are welcome, they play a vital role in our economy. Provided we have a reciprocal agreement for the somewhat less 1.2 million UK living in EU then we would expect that issue to be settled quickly," he says.

The attitude in the UK towards EU migration is derived from the mistake Blair made to open the floodgates in 2004, he adds.

The Trump administration

“A change of administration in Washington is a very big issue for us and the EU,” states Hammond. “Brexit has introduced uncertainty and change of administration in the US has introduced even bigger uncertainty.”

“My personal view is that the most important part of this is Europe’s rather delicate relationship with Russia. Not just because Europe needs security, but because some of the internal EU dynamics are driven by some member states having a much more acute focus on the challenge that Russia represents to them, and anything that changes the status quo," he asserts.

Jes Staley adds:

But Philip Hammond argues that that is not the case for the UK:

“Our first duty is to protect living standards and that means a strong economy," says Hammond. "If we were closed off from markets we would have to reinvent ourselves, but we have done it before."

As to whether Brexit can happen within two years, Hammond is cautiously optimistic: