Campaigners have lost a High Court challenge over the legality of Article 50. They hoped to win permission for a judicial review which, they claimed, could result in Brexit negotiations coming to a halt. Lawyers for Elizabeth Webster, who spearheaded the crowd-funded effort, said there was clearly an arguable case to go forward to a full hearing.
UK prime minsiter Theresa May has appealed to Tory rebels not to undermine her negotiating position with the EU by backing amendments to Brexit legislation made by the Lords. Addressing a meeting of the backbench 1922 committee on Monday ahead of a series of crunch Commons votes, the Prime Minister told MPs to consider the signal that would be sent to Brussels if the Government was defeated.
The UK food and farming industry wants assurances from the government that it will still be able to recruit enough staff from the EU after Brexit. The demand came as part of a manifesto drawn up by more than 100 organizations across the industry and sent to the PM. It urges the government to publish a white paper setting out its immigration plans as a matter of priority.
Chancellor Philip Hammond has criticized claims from European Union officials that Britain has a “fantasy” approach to Brexit negotiations. Mr Hammond insisted that talks with EU officials were “constructive” after reports from the continent that Britain was being “unrealistic” and little progress made in discussions in recent days.
Gibraltar was discussed in Madrid on Saturday during a wide-ranging meeting on Brexit between the UK’s Minister for the Cabinet Office, David Lidington, and Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alfonso Dastis. Speaking after the meeting, Mr Lidington expressed confidence that a constructive agreement would be reached on Gibraltar’s post-Brexit relations with Spain and the wider EU.
Downing Street has nominated nine new Conservative peers, including a number of former ministers, to sit in the House of Lords. Among those put forward for a peerage are former communities secretary Sir Eric Pickles and former trade and industry secretary Peter Lilley.
Thomson Reuters, which operates trading systems for financial institutions around the world, is moving its foreign exchange derivatives trading business to Dublin from London. The company said it was moving so that post-Brexit it would still be regulated by European Union rules and could continue to sell into the EU.
Britain will remain a “very important pillar” of the United Nations after Brexit, the organization's secretary general has said. Antonio Guterres’s comments appear to contradict the fears of some opponents of Brexit that the UK’s withdrawal from the EU might throw into question its position as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, alongside the US, Russia, China and France.
Theresa May has asked officials to draw up revised proposals for post-Brexit customs arrangements after a key meeting with her most senior ministers. The Brexit sub committee met on Wednesday to try to agree on a new model to replace the UK's membership of the customs union.
Internal divisions on Gibraltar within Spain’s ruling Partido Popular have been laid bare in two versions of a parliamentary motion to be debated in the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Spanish Senate on Thursday.