Parliament must be given a veto over any trade deals the UK signs after Brexit, a committee of MPs has urged. Ministers hope to begin negotiating deals with key partners once the UK leaves the EU in March and start implementing them from 2021 onwards.
Another Brexit referendum will become a plausible way forward if there is deadlock in Parliament, Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd has said. She told ITV's Peston show while she did not personally support another vote, the case for one would grow if MPs could not agree another solution.
The Gibraltar Government would urge the UK to “stop Brexit completely” if MPs vote against Prime Minister Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement next week, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said. Speaking to GBC after returning to Gibraltar from London, Picardo highlighted two important developments this week which he said had opened up new possibilities as the UK Parliament grapples with the Brexit divorce deal this week.
The UK government may have broken Parliamentary rules by not publishing Brexit legal advice, the Commons Speaker has said. John Bercow said there was an “arguable case” that a contempt of Parliament has been committed.
EU leaders have approved an agreement on the UK's withdrawal and future relations - insisting it is the “best and only deal possible”. After 20 months of negotiations, the 27 leaders gave the deal their blessing after less than an hour's discussion.
The UK Parliament used a rarely-used procedure to compel an app developer to seize a number of internal Facebook documents related to the company’s decision-making process preceding the Cambridge Analytica scandal, reports The Guardian. The documents reportedly contain “significant revelations” about the decisions that set the stage for the Cambridge Analytica case.
Members of Parliament have been urged to back another Brexit referendum by 1,400 of the UK's top lawyers. They have written to Prime Minister Theresa May to say that Parliament should not be bound by the 2016 vote. “Democratic government is not frozen in time,” the letter said.
Britain's foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt told Parliament that the Falkland Islands will remain part of the UK for years to come despite Argentina's plans, after Brexit, to enhance dialogue with the Islanders and hopefully with a positive result for its claim over the Malvinas.
Prime Minister Theresa May has been applauded by Tory MPs at a meeting in which she sought to persuade her critics to get behind her in Brexit talks. The prime minister has been addressing all her MPs in Parliament, many of whom are seeking a change of approach. Asked by one MP what concessions she had made to the EU, she set out areas where the EU had itself given ground.
Gibraltar will step up its contingency planning as from January 1, 2019, if there is no certainty of a Withdrawal Agreement and implementation period by that date, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo told an influential House of Lords select committee. Addressing the EU Select Committee, he also signaled his hope that Gibraltar, the UK and Spain could salvage elements of the Gibraltar negotiations even in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit between the UK and the EU.