UK Think-Tank Says Will Challenge EU Market Exit

A British think-tank said on Monday it planned to take legal action over whether the government can take Britain out of the single market as part of its exit from the European Union, in the latest legal attempt to challenge the Brexit process.

The pro-single market group British Influence said it believed the government could be breaking the law if it did not get a clear legal opinion as to whether Britain's membership of the EEA automatically ended along with its membership of the EU, Reuters reported. Membership of the EEA, which includes the EU countries as well as Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, provides access to the single market and its free movement of goods, capital, services and people.

"The single market was not on the ballot paper," Jonathan Lis, the deputy director of British Influence, said. "We're leaving the EU, that's fine, but we don't need to leave the single market and the government should be embracing this intervention, not disputing it."

A spokeswoman for the government said Britain was only party to the EEA Agreement in its capacity as an EU member state.