Brexit

Jeremy Corbyn has mocked Theresa Mays invitation to the Labour party to help create policies
for the UKs future post-Brexit by offering to give her a copy of his election manifesto and
suggesting she call another general election.

Corbyn was responding to Mays parliamentary statement on the G20 meeting in Hamburg,
which she attended on Friday and Saturday. He expressed surprise she had so much to contribute
to the summit, claiming there was barely anything on international policy in the Conservative
election manifesto.

Or indeed any policy so much so that the government is now asking other parties for their
policy ideas, said Corbyn. So if the prime minister would like it I would be very happy to
furnish her with a copy of our election manifesto or better still an early election in order that
the people of this country can better decide.

Trumps position reckless and dangerous and said collaborative work was urgently required to
stop the world reaching a point of no return on climate change. He said other leaders had been
unequivocal over the issue and urged May to speak out more boldly.

May responded that the UK had a proud record on climate change, saying the country was the
third best in the world for tackling it and would continue to lead on it. She repeated her
suggestion that she was dismayed by Trumps decision to pull out and said she had personally
raised the issue with the US president.

Pressed on the question of her attempt to build trade deals with non-EU countries, when the
economic relationship with Europe was most pressing, May said: He talks about trade deals
well Im very happy to tell him we are already working with the Americans, we already have a
working group with the Australians, we have a working group with India as well. Trumps
position reckless and dangerous and said collaborative work was urgently required to stop the
world reaching a point of no return on climate change. He said other leaders had been
unequivocal over the issue and urged May to speak out more boldly.

May responded that the UK had a proud record on climate change, saying the country was the
third best in the world for tackling it and would continue to lead on it. She repeated her
suggestion that she was dismayed by Trumps decision to pull out and said she had personally
raised the issue with the US president.
Pressed on the question of her attempt to build trade deals with non-EU countries, when the
economic relationship with Europe was most pressing, May said: He talks about trade deals
well Im very happy to tell him we are already working with the Americans, we already have a
working group with the Australians, we have a working group with India as well. The leader of
the SNP Westminster group, Ian Blackford, said the UK was now floundering around on a
global stage desperately trying to make friends as he questioned the risks of a US trade deal.

Brexit, Donald Trump and the threat to Europe

Britain is courting a president-elect who looks forward to the unravelling of the EU

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UK nuclear regulator faces skills shortage after Brexit

British prime ministers are prone to spend their last days governing from a bunker. Convinced of
their own immortality they dispense with forthright advisers in favour of devoted aides. The
passage of time narrows their sight of the world beyond the front door of 10 Downing Street.

Theresa May has started out where her predecessors ended up. Scarcely six months in the job,
Mrs May is roundly mistrustful of her senior civil servants. Officials are shut out of decision-
making. Unvarnished advice invites histrionics from her political sidekicks. It is not an
intelligent way to run a government never mind one charged with managing the biggest
upheaval in the nations political and economic life since the end of the second world war.

Mrs May has now set out her plans for a hard Brexit a clean break with the EU that will
take Britain out of the single market and the customs union. There can be no half-in, half-out, she
said, if Britain wanted to curb EU migration and renounce the jurisdiction of the European Court
of Justice.

The prime minister had previously dismissed the idea of such a trade-off. She would get a
bespoke deal, and Britain, in the tactful phrase of Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, would
have its cake and eat it. Sir Ivan Rogers, the UKs permanent representative in Brussels, resigned
in frustration. It was not until this week that Mrs May finally accepted the remorseless logic of
her determination to shut out Polish plumbers and Hungarian fruit-pickers. Sir Ivan, it seems,
had been right all along.

The prime ministers speech offered the usual pro-forma reassurance about strong, post-Brexit
ties with Europe and fanciful guff about the vast new opportunities for a nation now rechristened
Global Britain. Yet no one should doubt the cost, economic and geopolitical, of the proposed
break with the EU.

Britain will cease to be a platform for foreign businesses manufacturing and services that
want to sell unimpeded into the worlds largest market. Companies will face new barriers to
trade with an EU 27 accounting for more than two-fifths of British exports. Dozens of third-
country trade deals will be upended. As economic ties weaken, political relationships will wither.
British prime ministers will be absent from the councils of their own continent.

Perhaps Mrs May has understood this in her eagerness to court US president-elect Donald
Trump. Before the election she shared the Westminster establishment view of Mr Trump as a
dangerous vulgarian. Now, word has gone out from No 10 that nothing is to be said or done to
put in question Britains admiration for the new administration. At Mr Trumps bidding, Mr
Johnson is busy scuppering European criticism of Israel. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth will be
obliged to ready Buckingham Palace for a visit from the Trump circus.

British leaders always fret about getting on with new incumbents in the White House. The
relationship is an essential pillar of national security. As the English Channel widens, the
neediness looks set to grow. Mr Trump has promised a trade deal. So there would have been no
harm in a little flattery. There comes a point, though, at which fawning sinks to self-abasement.

The president-elect scarcely presents himself as a predictable or reliable partner. On every

measure free trade, climate change, Nato, Russia, Iran his views collide with Britains
national interests. British spooks are already wondering whether it will be safe any longer to
share their secrets with Washington. Is Mrs May soon to join Mr Trump in lauding Russian
President Vladimir Putin, denying global warming and disarming the Nato alliance?
The prime ministers threats of retribution if talks go badly will doubtless sour the Brexit
process. It seems reasonable that Britains partners will not allow it to pick and choose from the
customs union. Nor can they be expected to agree special protections for financial services. They
should acknowledge, however, the line between a tough but reasonable and a punitive response
to Mrs Mays opening gambit. No one would gain from a disorderly Brexit.

Chancellor responds to Mays breakaway plans with defence of EU indivisibility

After all, the 27 have troubles aplenty of their own from slow growth and incomplete
monetary union to rising anti-migrant populism. Mr Trump is promising to make things worse.

For more than six decades the US has been at once the cheerleader for, and guarantor of,
European integration. America, in effect, has been Europes pre-eminent power. Mr Trump
wants to turn the policy on its head. Brexit, he hopes, will be the beginning of a great unravelling
of the European project.

There is no purpose in looking for logic here. Americas interests are still served by a cohesive
Europe. What Mr Trump means for Europe, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said this
week, is that its fate lies in its own hands.

If the far-right Marine Le Pen wins Frances presidential election the game may well be up. But
the election of almost any of the alternatives will present Berlin and Paris with an opportunity as
well as a challenge.

More than half a century ago Britain bowed to US pressure and pulled out of an Anglo-French
enterprise to retake control of the Suez Canal. France cried treachery. Konrad Adenauer, the
German chancellor, told his French counterpart Guy Mollet, that a united Europe would be
Frances revenge against the perfidious Anglo-Saxons. The world has moved on, but the parallel
is telling.