Johnson vows EU cooperation after referendum result
Boris Johnson says the UK will continue to "intensify" cooperation with the EU following the country's vote to leave.
The leading pro-Leave campaigner said exit supporters must accept the 52-48 result was "not entirely overwhelming".
Writing in Monday's Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson dismissed Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's call for a second independence referendum saying there was little "appetite" for one.
Eleven members of the shadow front bench resigned on Sunday following the sacking of shadow foreign secretary Hillary Benn, who told Mr Corbyn he had lost confidence in him.
In his first words since accepting the result of the EU referendum on Friday, Mr Johnson wrote that "the only change" would be to free the UK from the EU's "extraordinary and opaque" law, which "will not come in any great rush".
'Single market access'
His column said: "I cannot stress too much that Britain is part of Europe, and always will be.
"There will still be intense and intensifying European cooperation and partnership in a huge number of fields: the arts, the sciences, the universities, and on improving the environment.
"EU citizens living in this country will have their rights fully protected, and the same goes for British citizens living in the EU.
"British people will still be able to go and work in the EU; to live; to travel; to study; to buy homes and to settle down. As the German equivalent of the CBI - the BDI - has very sensibly reminded us, there will continue to be free trade, and access to the single market.
"The only change - and it will not come in any great rush - is that the UK will extricate itself from the EU's extraordinary and opaque system of legislation: the vast and growing corpus of law enacted by a European Court of Justice from which there can be no appeal."
In other developments:
- George Osborne will issue a statement early on Monday morning in a bid to calm markets after the surprise Brexit vote triggered turmoil on Friday
- The pound fell in early trading in Asia on Monday, adding to Friday's record one-day decline
- Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says Holyrood could try to block the UK's exit from the EU
- The House of Commons petitions committee says it is investigating allegations of fraud in connection with a petition calling for a second EU referendum
- Former Conservative leader and Brexit campaigner Iain Duncan Smith told the BBC the new prime minister should come from the Leave camp
Prime Minister David Cameron said on Friday that he would step down as PM by the autumn after losing the vote for Britain to remain within the EU.
Boris Johnson, MP for Uxbridge and the leading pro-Brexit campaigner, is among those tipped to succeed him.
Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which sets a two-year deadline on the UK's formal exit from the EU, has not yet been triggered by the British government.
EU foreign ministers have previously urged Britain to start the process soon.
On Saturday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU had "no need to be particularly nasty in any way" in the negotiations with Britain.
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