Over the past 12 months, I've said many times that while the UK is leaving the EU, we are not leaving Europe. No one voted to end the special ties between the UK and Ireland or to undermine the unique arrangements between Ireland and Northern Ireland which have underpinned the peace process and have been in place well before our membership of the EU.
A Brexit minister should be appointed to put Wales' interests “at the centre” of negotiations, Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies has said. Mr Davies said the first minister could not handle the “biggest constitutional challenge of our time” alone and insisted the Welsh government should be reconfigured to give “strong and constructive representation” to UK ministers on EU negotiations.
First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon has dismissed the UK government's plans for a post-Brexit customs deal with the EU as a daft 'have cake and eat it' approach. UK ministers have set out plans for an ambitious new customs arrangement with the EU after the UK leaves.
The United Kingdom government has said it does not want any border posts between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in its new position paper on Brexit. The paper is part of its negotiations with the European Union and the broad ideas in the document appear familiar.
Theresa May is expected to be back in Downing Street this week as ministers prepare to flesh out their negotiating position on Brexit. The return of the Prime Minister, who has spent three weeks on holiday in Italy with her husband Philip, coincides with the publication this week of a series of new position papers on Brexit – including one on the fraught issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
Prime Minister Theresa May reiterated the UK Government’s strong and wholehearted support for the Falkland Islands right to self-determination and underlined UK is seeking a more productive relation with Argentina but cautioned that the full potential of the relationship depends on Buenos Aires meeting the public commitments of the September 2016 joint communiqué.
The UK will need a transition period to help businesses adjust after Brexit, the chancellor and the international trade secretary have said. In a joint Sunday Telegraph article, Philip Hammond and Liam Fox stressed any deal would not be indefinite or a “back door” to staying in the EU.
UK government ministers have been put under pressure by David Davis’s former chief of staff at the Brexit department after he asked a serious of pointed question about how leaving the EU will affect their patches. James Chapman, who also worked for George Osborne and as political editor of the Daily Mail, has revealed his belief that Brexit would be a “catastrophe”.
Britain is “a bit gloomy” about Brexit and can achieve success outside the European Union, Australia’s high commissioner to the UK has said. Alexander Downer said the UK could be “cautiously optimistic” about achieving a new free trade deal with the EU, and could forge a new and successful economic policy if it pursued the right path domestically.
The possibility of releasing new powers to Holyrood after Brexit will be discussed in talks between the UK and Scottish ministers scheduled for this Wednesday. First Secretary of State Damian Green will meet Deputy First Minister John Swinney and Scotland's Brexit Minister Michael Russell in Edinburgh.