Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Theresa May says the UK will not wait to take back control of defence and foreign policy… Britain will pull out of a major foreign policy arrangement as soon as possible after Brexit, Theresa May has announced. The Prime Minister said the UK would not wait until the end of any implementation period to take back full control over areas like diplomacy, peacekeeping, defence and aid. Common policy on foreign and security areas grew out of the Maastricht Treaty so the move is likely to please Brexiteers. But Mrs May stressed that Britain will continue to work closely with the EU on security and said the UK’s commitment to protecting Europe from threats is “unconditional”. Mrs May said: “There is no reason why we should not agree distinct arrangements for our foreign and defence policy co-operation in the time-limited implementation period as the Commission has proposed.” – BT Theresa May blasts EU ‘political doctrine’ in push for post-Brexit security deal – Sky News Theresa May replies to ‘extremely regrettable Brexit’ remark – BBC News There’s a Brexit deal to be done on security – James Forsyth for the Spectator > On BrexitCentral’s YouTube: Theresa May’s speech to the Munich Security Conference …as she pledges ‘there’s no going back’ on Brexit In a swipe at Europhiles calling for another Brexit vote on membership, Theresa May added: “People in the UK feel very strongly that if they take a decision, governments shouldn’t turn round to them and say, ‘No you’ve got that wrong, have another go, see if you can get it right next time’.” She declared that Britain will take back control of its foreign policy as soon as we leave the EU. And she confirmed that the European Court of Justice will “no longer have jurisdiction over the UK” once we leave. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of more than 70 countries’ representatives, a defiant Mrs May said the UK would not wait until the end of any implementation period to take back full control over areas like diplomacy, peacekeeping, defence and aid. – Express Defiant Theresa May insists Britain is leaving the EU and rules out second referendum – Sun on Sunday Jean-Claude Juncker says he does not want ‘revenge’ for Brexit Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, has said he did not want “revenge” on Britain for the Brexit vote. The president of the European Commission said that he wanted to see security cooperation continue, but said security cooperation should not be “mixed up” with other Brexit negotiation issues. He told the Munich Security Conference: “I believe since we are not at war with the UK and since we do not want to take revenge on the UK for what the British people have decided, so this security alliance, this security bridge between the UK and the EU will be maintained, we still need it.” – Telegraph Brains for Brexit: top academics and thinkers put the case for ‘leave’ Brexiteers can come out of the closet and hold their heads high. They will know that they have the support of Nigel Biggar, professor of theology at Oxford; Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6; David Abulafia, professor of history at Cambridge; and Sir Noel Malcolm of All Souls, Oxford. In fact, they will have the support of 37 of the brightest people — both from the left and the right — in the land. And soon there will be many more of them. The list is due to appear because a pair of Cambridge academics, one leftish, one rightish, were sick of the vilification of Brexiteers, the distortions of the remainers and of being “deluged with one-sided propaganda”. In a calm, professional egghead sort of way, they’re mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it any more. “I thought of it during one of those terribly pessimistic weeks,” says the economist Graham Gudgin, of the Judge Business School at Cambridge, “when Theresa May wasn’t going to last until teatime and there was definitely going to be a second referendum. Together we thought, ‘Gosh, we ought to be better organised than at the last referendum.’” – Sunday Times (£) Brainy Brits come out for Brexit – Sunday Times (£) > Robert Tombs and Graham Gudgin on BrexitCentral today: Our fellow academics must stop pushing dishonest anti-Brexit propaganda 20,000 Labour members protest at party’s stance on Brexit, as former leader and Eurocrat Neil Kinnock piles pressure on Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Corbyn has come under intense pressure to shift Labour’s position on Brexit after 20,000 members demanded a say over the issue and former leader Neil Kinnock backed halting Britain’s EU exit altogether. It is understood that the Labour leader will also be confronted by some in his shadow cabinet this week who want him to back remaining in the single market and customs union. Speaking to the Observer, Kinnock said he had been angered by claims from Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, that the NHS should benefit from the money saved by leaving the European Union. He said the reality was that “we should stop Brexit to save the NHS” or at the very least “mitigate the damage” by staying within the single market. – Observer MPs want Brexit fund for UK farmers The industry is concerned cheaper imports will be available because of lower environmental and animal welfare standards in the countries they are produced – and that the UK’s import rules may be softened in order to sign trade deals. However a Defra spokesperson said: “Leaving the EU gives us a golden opportunity to secure ambitious free trade deals while supporting our farmers and producers to grow and sell more great British food. “Any future [EU-UK] deal must work for UK farmers, businesses and consumers, and we will not compromise on our high environmental or welfare standards.” The agriculture industry employs one in eight people in the UK. – BBC News > Neil Parish MP on BrexitCentral today: We need to create ‘Brand Britain’ to make agriculture flourish after Brexit UKIP votes to sack leader Henry Bolton British eurosceptic party UKIP was thrown into turmoil again on Saturday when its members removed leader Henry Bolton after less than five months in charge following criticism of his leadership and a scandal about racist comments made by his lover. The anti-EU United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) was an influential force in bringing about a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union in 2016, but has struggled to maintain its relevance since the country voted to leave the European Union. – Reuters Ireland’s ‘big mistake is backing EU’ in Brexit negotiations, says former Irish Ambassador The Republic of Ireland is making “a very big mistake in backing team EU” in the UK’s Brexit negotiations and is “now in a diplomatic cul-de-sac”, according to a former Irish Ambassador and senior advisor to successive Irish Prime Ministers. “Ireland has more at stake than any other EU country – we should be working closely with Britain to achieve the best possible Brexit outcome,” said Ray Bassett, who retired as Ambassador to Canada in 2016, having spent much of his career at the top of Ireland’s civil service. “The EU cares more about the integrity of its own legal order – which is all about creating a super-state – than the economic interests of a small, peripheral state like Ireland,” Bassett told The Sunday Telegraph. – Sunday Telegraph (£) > Andrew McCann on BrexitCentral today: Brussels and Dublin are playing political games with the Irish border to trap the UK after Brexit Scientists ‘should escape’ post‑Brexit migration curb Scientists must have freedom of movement if the UK is to remain a global centre for research after Brexit, Britain’s most powerful scientist has warned. Sir Mark Walport said British and EU scientists should be able to live and work freely across Europe. “In any good lab you will find researchers from all over the world,” he said. The former government chief scientific adviser, who is about to take charge of all public research spending in the UK, spoke to The Sunday Times in Austin. “Research is global and international,” he said. “At the end of the day the negotiation [with the EU] is above my pay grade . . . but the hope of the government is that we can continue to have a very strong association.” – Sunday Times (£) Cornish fishermen fear catch in Brexit talks Fishermen from the Cornish port of Newlyn were among the most spirited Brexiters. Days before Britain’s 2016 EU referendum some sailed more than 300 hundred miles from England’s westernmost reaches to join a pro-Brexit flotilla on the Thames — their presence intended as a visceral reminder of working people hard done by the EU’s overweening regulation. Soon they will find out whether it was all worth it. As Britain tries to negotiate a two-year transition agreement with Brussels that is supposed to provide a smooth path for industry after the country leaves the EU next year, its fishermen fear they may be getting a raw deal. – FT (£) Gisela Stuart: This is a crucial moment for May and her government. There must be no backsliding on a clean Brexit Let’s be clear: any deal that leaves the UK aligned with EU rules, which requires our immigration regime to treat European nationals significantly different than those from non-EU countries, or which deprives us of control over our trading future would not be honouring the referendum result. And let’s also be clear that the desired end-point for people making this argument is not in fact a ‘soft Brexit’: what they want is ‘no Brexit’. Only recently, we saw proof that wealthy Remainers are trying to put pressure on the Government to ignore the wishes of 17.4 million people – planning to reverse Brexit entirely. Once again, we’re hearing their calls for a second referendum – with claims that Britain could go back to the EU, say sorry and pretend the Brexit vote never happened. This is nothing but a refusal to accept the result of the referendum. – Gisela Stuart for ConservativeHome Malcolm Rifkind: Brexit must mean leaving the EU single market As the UK enters the most crucial stage of the Brexit negotiations the issues are getting even more challenging and intractable. One could be forgiven for saying that as one door closes another slams in your face. The government not only has to negotiate its preferred relationship between the UK and the EU, where the choices available are all rather grisly. The prime minister also has the additional burden of keeping her cabinet united. That she managed to get unanimous agreement in December for an increased budget offer was a reminder that Theresa May is both tough and resilient. I voted for Britain to remain in the EU and continue to believe that, on balance, Brexit does not best serve the national interest. But a different conclusion was reached by a majority of the British public and the evidence suggests that another referendum would produce the same result. Like many, my initial strong preference was that, if we are out of the EU, we should at least remain within the single market. – Sir Malcolm Rifkind for the FT (£) John Redwood MP: Sharing data and security information I find it strange that three Heads of Security Agencies had to speak out for fear that Brexit would damage exchanges of information between France, Germany and the UK after Brexit. Why should it? They would have to want to change their current procedures, or their governments would have to stop instructing them to make sensible exchange. It is already the case that if the UK gets intelligence about a threat to lives in France it will tell the French authorities and vice versa. There are data sharing agreements, based on what we can usually share with due consideration of how each Intelligence service protects its own sources. The UK belongs to the Five Eyes grouping of the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada where trust is even stronger and the sharing has gone further, and that will clearly continue after Brexit. – John Redwood’s Diary Oliver Wiseman: The Remainers’ dead end Yes, the Brexit blockers are upbeat at the moment. They are better organised and better funded than at any time since the referendum, with grand plans to force a second vote on Brexit. But the truth is that Europe was already moving away from Britain, and has continued to do so since we voted Leave. The thing we left isn’t really there for us to return to – something which will become ever more the case as Britain and Europe continue down their separate paths. The ultra-Remainers aren’t traitors or quislings or any of the other unhelpful insults that have been slung their way. They’re just labouring under a misapprehension about what Britain thinks about Europe, why it voted Leave in 2016 and the options on the table now. And by focusing their energy on reversing Brexit rather than improving it, they have only made more likely the hardest of hard Brexits that they fear the most. – Oliver Wiseman for CapX Sunday Times: This is the pragmatic way to negotiate with Europe As a former long-serving home secretary, it is perhaps not surprising that Theresa May is at her most comfortable when talking about security issues. Nevertheless, her speech yesterday to the Munich Security Conference should be applauded — and not just for what it implied for security and defence. The prime minister reminded her audience that this country puts its money where its mouth is in these areas, devoting 2% of GDP on defence, making Britain the second largest defence spender in Nato after the United States, as well as committing 0.7% of gross national income to international development. Most importantly, and from that position of strength, Mrs May made a generous offer. “The British people took a legitimate democratic decision to bring decision making and accountability closer to home,” she said. But it has always been the case that our security at home is best advanced through global co-operation and working with institutions that support that, including the European Union. – Sunday Times editorial Brexit in brief Key Remainers are disregarding older voters – Express editorial The Brexiteers won’t quit if Theresa May makes pragmatic compromises over Brexit – John Rentoul for the Independent Our Government should take note of Donald Trump’s low tax and business-friendly approach – Sun on Sunday editorial Theresa May’s made a hash of Brexit and now the door is open to a second referendum – Adam Boulton for the Sunday Times (£) Netherlands to hire 750 extra customs officials to tackle Brexit – Politico West Balkan states must solve border disputes before joining EU, says Juncker – Reuters