I want to push ahead with domestic agenda, insists May

Theresa May has signalled that she wants to remain in power and push ahead with her domestic agenda once the UK has left the EU.

The Prime Minister insisted that her job was not only about delivering Brexit on the scheduled date of March 29, but also dealing with issues like the NHS.

Mrs May stressed that once the UK had formally withdrawn from the EU a new future partnership deal with the bloc needed to be hammered out.

The Prime Minister’s comments come after she made it clear to Tory MPs in December that she would not lead the party into the next scheduled general election in 2022.

That move was thought to have helped Mrs May survive a vote of no confidence in her leadership before Christmas.

Referencing her pledge to create a fairer society when she first entered Downing Street, Mrs May said: “I was very clear in December with the Conservative Party that as far as I’m concerned, what I am doing, my job is not only about delivering Brexit, actually there’s a domestic agenda that I am delivering on.

“It reflects what I said on the doorstep of Number Ten when I first became Prime Minister.

“That’s why we’ve been making key decisions like the extra money for the National Health Service, the long-term plan for the National Health Service, and there is still a domestic agenda that I want to get on with – deliver.”

Mrs May’s victory in the confidence vote means that she cannot face another such attempt to oust her until the end of this year.

The PM was speaking after reports that some ministers want her to quit after the May local elections.

Mrs May said that after withdrawal the UK still needed to agree its future relations with Brussels.

Speaking as she attended an EU-League of Arab States summit in Egypt, the PM said: “There’s a second part of the negotiations in terms of the future economic partnership, the future security partnership.

“We have set out a clear framework for that in the Political Declaration, that’s the basis on which those negotiations would go forward.

“The complete package of Brexit, we leave on March 29, but also we have to put in place that future relationship because that’s about the sustainable long term relationship of the UK with the EU.”