Italian PM: Brexit negotiation need not be ‘disruptive’ There is no point in the EU conducting a “disruptive” Brexit negotiation with the U.K, Paolo Gentiloni said Thursday following talks with Theresa May at Downing Street. The Italian prime minister said while it would “not be an easy negotiation,” Article 50 talks should be conducted with the goal of finding “the best possible” agreement with the U.K. Gentiloni added that it would be a priority for Italy to secure the continued residency rights of its citizens living in the U.K. after Brexit. – Politico Italian PM Paolo Gentiloni promises Theresa May a positive approach to UK during EU split – The Sun UK and Italy to hold bilateral meetings post-Brexit – ITV News Italy vows to unite EU to give UK good Brexit deal as there’s ‘no point’ punishing Britain – Daily Express Peers are supposedly confident they can force changes to Theresa May’s plans Peers in the House of Lords are confident they can force changes to the Article 50 Bill and derail Theresa May’s timetable for starting Brexit. The Independent has learned of the areas of the legislation that Labour peers are determined to amend – the rights of EU nationals, the vote on the final deal and regular reports on the exit talks. The Liberal Democrats will also go into battle over EU nationals and other attempts to re-shape Brexit are certain to come from independent crossbenchers. – The Independent Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier set to demand UK pays €57bn to leave EU Chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is set a demand €57bn (£48bn) in a divorce settlement from Britain following talks in Brussels this week. Sky News understands that the precise figure was agreed at a meeting on Monday, in which France and Germany demanded the UK is forced to pay upwards of €70bn (£59bn). Britain is committed to tens of billions of euro in spending on EU wide projects up until 2020 as well as the pensions of officials. The discussion ended with an agreement that any trade negotiations could only begin when the final bill is reached. Britain had hoped that any future EU trade agreement could be agreed in parallel. – Sky News European Commission: Independent Scotland would have to join queue for EU membership An independent Scotland would start life outside the EU and be forced to join the queue for membership, the European Commission’s official representative in the UK has said in a major blow to Nicola Sturgeon’s Brexit strategy. Jacqueline Minor said Jean Claude Juncker, the commission’s president, had made clear there would be no more states admitted until 2020 – the year after the UK is expected to leave the European Union. She said there are several countries waiting to become member states, including Montenegro and Serbia, and an independent Scotland “would join that list.” This would mean Scotland being outside both the UK and EU for an indeterminate period. – Daily Telegraph > On BrexitCentral’s Twitter: Ross Thomson MSP: “In both this Parliament and at Westminster, 1 million Scottish Leave voters have been left totally unrepresented” Nicola Sturgeon condemns ‘pathetic’ Corbyn over Brexit – The Scotsman Apple boss Tim Cook optimistic about UK’s future outside EU Apple CEO Tim Cook says the technology giant is committed to Britain’s future outside the European Union. Cook said after meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday that he’s optimistic about the country’s prospects, noting that Apple is moving ahead with a new UK headquarters in London. Cook also met with London Mayor Sadiq Khan amid uncertainty about the impact that Britain’s decision to leave the 28-nation bloc will have on the U.K. economy. Cook says Apple is “doubling down on a huge headquarters in the Battersea area and we’re leaving significant space there to expand.” He says “we’re a big believer in the UK , we think you’ll be just fine … yes, there will be bumps in the road along the way, but the U.K.’s going to be fine.” – Bloomberg Jeremy Corbyn reshuffles Shadow Cabinet again in wake of Brexit rebellion Jeremy Corbyn has begun another reshuffle of his frontbench team, triggered by the decision of 52 Labour MPs to defy the Labour leader and vote against Brexit. Rebecca Long-Bailey replaces Clive Lewis as shadow business secretary with Peter Dowd moving to fill Long-Bailey’s position as shadow chief secretary to the Treasury. Sue Hayman replaces Rachael Maskell as shadow environment secretary and Christina Rees replaces Jo Stevens as shadow Welsh secretary. – Huffington Post Theresa May’s Brexit plans could open deeper military alliance with Japan, says senior official Brexit could open the door to a deeper military alliance between Japan, the US and the UK as Britain breaks free from the constraints of EU foreign policy, a senior Japanese official has said. Leaving the EU posed risks but also a series of opportunities to Britain, the official told the Telegraph, including the chance to play a key role in Japan’s new foreign policy strategy in the Indian and Pacific Ocean. “For Japan the opportunity will be in the security arena because the UK will split from the EU, and the UK’s diplomatic policy will not be bound by EU policies anymore,” said the official, who was authorised to speak on behalf of the government but asked not to be named. – Daily Telegraph Liam Fox: Britain has 200 trade negotiators with more to come Britain has around 200 trade negotiators and will seek to increase this number further, according to the International Trade Secretary. Liam Fox added his department, established in July following the EU referendum, now had some 3,000 staff, with hiring continuing. Mr Fox said last September he was not looking to create a “standing army of bureaucrats”, with the focus on developing “world-classing negotiating strength”. – Daily Telegraph Bad-tempered Brexit talks loom as May’s demands irk EU officials May’s initial demands –- and warnings over what she will do with taxes or security if she doesn’t get her way -– are elevating the likelihood that the U.K. leaves the bloc in 2019 without an exit deal, let alone the sweeping trade pact it seeks, according to five Brussels-based diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity. The decline in sentiment comes less than two months before May plans to open discussions by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and suggests she may need to modify her approach to ensure the breakup doesn’t end up hurting both economies. “It’s going to be very complicated, very messy,” former Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb told Bloomberg Television this week. “When you’re negotiating Article 50, you’re talking about 200,000 pages of secondary legislation — it’s not going to be easy to just get out.” – Bloomberg Heathrow sees Brexit uplift as it enjoys best January ever Heathrow Airport landed record figures for January as year-on-year growth for both passenger numbers and cargo volumes underlined the airport’s post-Brexit bounce. The transport hub said that 5.74m passengers passed through its terminals last month, numbers which are up by 4.2% in comparison to last January, while cargo volumes were also up 4.4%. It caps a buoyant winter period for Heathrow after passenger numbers in December and January marked their fastest year-on-year growth in six years, while passenger and cargo volumes more than doubled in the second half of year despite the Brexit vote. – BDaily Diane Abbott MP: Labour has to listen to the nation – that’s why I voted for Article 50 It is sometimes forgotten that here has long been a strand of opinion on the left that was anti-EU. Ancestral hostility to the European Union was reinforced, for a younger generation of leftwingers, by campaigning against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a series of trade negotiations carried out, mostly in secret, between the EU and US and the profoundly undemocratic way that Greece was treated within the Economic and Monetary Union. – Diane Abbott MP for The Guardian Fraser Nelson: Brexit is revolutionary, but can Theresa May find the reforming zeal to match it? It might not have felt like it at the time, but Gina Miller and the Supreme Court did Theresa May a great favour.In requiring her to seek Parliament’s permission to leave the European Union, they forced her into five days of Commons battles from which she has emerged stronger than ever. Her Government defeated all 16 of the attempts to amend her Article 50 legislation, each time by a comfortable margin. The Tory whips proved strikingly effective and the Labour Party, yet again, was a danger only to itself. The Prime Minister had been fearful of how her party, still deeply split on Brexit, would hold up under pressure. She need not have worried. – Fraser Nelson for the Daily Telegraph Leo McKinstry: The Article 50 vote has been a crushing triumph for Theresa May. Who dares oppose Brexit now? It was not meant to be like this. The judicial decision that Article 50 could not be triggered without Parliament’s approval was supposed to provoke a severe crisis for the Government. A host of media commentators and Remain campaigners gleefully predicted that Conservative Ministers would soon be under siege, with their party’s slim Commons majority struggling to cope with a deadly barrage of amendments and Opposition attacks. But the exact opposite has been the case. The Article 50 Bill has sailed through the Commons unscathed. Not a single addition has been made to its concise wording. Every amendment was decisively rejected. Meanwhile the Government enjoyed a far bigger majority on the Third Reading than even the wildest Brexit optimists could imagined. – Daily Telegraph John Curtice: What do Labour Remain voters want? If Labour wishes to reflect the views of its voters on Brexit, it needs, in the first instance at least, to be willing to reject the premise from which it is thought the EU would like the negotiations to start – a choice between a soft Brexit of free trade and a hard Brexit of immigration control. And if, as seems quite likely, the UK government tries initially to secure both free trade and a measure of immigration control, the party would be wise to keep its powder dry – and simply insist that the government needs to deliver. John Curtice for the New Statesman Brexit comment in brief Is the trade minister trying too hard to counter “black propaganda”? – Emily Redding for Reaction Post-Brexit Britain will be a paradise for lobbyists – and it’s not necessarily a bad thing – James Frayne for City A.M. Brexit news in brief UK unlikely to remain in EU carbon market, says EU policymaker – Reuters Brexit hate crime focus of Cardiff Uni monitoring study – BBC News Commons confidential: The Brexit chill – New Statesman Brexit is making FTSE 100 executives richer as company stocks soar after EU referendum – The Independent Sadiq Khan holds first meeting of expert Brexit panel to protect London’s economy – Evening Standard Brexit will cause ‘vanishingly small’ fall in net migration, claims report – The Guardian