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The influential think-tank believes Britain will need years to prepare for Brexit and the two-year transition proposal that Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservatives are still fighting over won’t be nearly enough to protect businesses from a cliff-edge.
“There will be two transitions: The first one will be the status quo -- identical to membership but with no votes for the U.K., and two years won’t be long enough," Grant said in an interview. “Once you’ve worked out the new relationship, you then need an implementation phase to phase in the new rules.”
The U.K. leader is seeking one strictly limited, two-year transition and some Conservatives consider even that too long, as the U.K. will continue to pay into the EU budget and obey its rules during that time.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson -- a leading Brexit campaigner and a possible successor to May -- set out a red line on Friday that any interim arrangement mustn’t last “a second more” than two years, while Jacob Rees-Mogg, another pro-Brexit lawmaker, takes a similar approach. [...]