London: Prime Minister Theresa May made a plea for national unity over Brexit on Thursday as she toured Britain on the day that a one-year countdown to departure from the European Union begins.
Ms May was visiting Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales during her day-long tour, aiming to shore up support for the government’s Brexit strategy.
Brexit remains a fractious topic, with former prime minister Tony Blair leading a push for second referendum.
Ms May kicked off the trip with a visit to a textile factory in Ayrshire, southwest Scotland, before travelling to Newcastle in northeast England to meet a parent and toddler group.
“Brexit provides us with opportunities. I want to see us coming together, the four nations across the United Kingdom,” she told the Ayr gathering, insisting that “we will be leaving the European Union on March 29 2019”.
Ms May was later to stop for lunch with farmers near Belfast in Northern Ireland before meeting Welsh business owners in Barry, then returning to London in time for tea with a Polish group. “I am determined that as we leave the EU, and in the years ahead, we will strengthen the bonds that unite us,” May said before her visit.
“I have an absolute responsibility to protect the integrity of the United Kingdom as a whole.
In a seismic referendum on June 23, 2016, 52 percent of voters in the UK opted for Britain to leave the European Union.
Most voters in England and Wales backed Brexit, while majorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland wanted the UK to stay in the EU.
