Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team May warns Brussels that ‘divorce bill’ deal is off without a trade agreement… Theresa May today warned European leaders that she would take her offer of a financial settlement with Brussels “off the table” unless they agreed to an acceptable trade deal with Britain after Brexit. Updating MPs on last Friday’s interim deal with Brussels, the prime minister emphasised that her commitments on citizens rights, money and the Irish border were contingent on the outcome of phase two of the negotiations. She also confirmed that this Thursday’s summit of EU leaders would give the green light to negotiations on a two-year transition deal to begin “as soon as possible”. But, setting up the battles ahead, Mrs May was immediately challenged by Brexiteers including Iain Duncan Smith on the nature of such a transition deal. – The Times (£) Brexit transition work to begin “immediately” after sufficient progress declared – City A.M. …as EU chiefs insist we make exit deal law before talking trade Negotiations on Britain’s future trade agreement will continue only if last week’s withdrawal deal is quickly turned into a legally binding treaty, European Union leaders will state. A text to be agreed by them this week calls on Theresa May to “start drafting the relevant parts of the withdrawal agreement” into law. In language aimed at David Davis, the Brexit secretary, they will warn that any attempt to backtrack on last Friday’s agreement would result in the EU halting trade talks. EU officials and diplomats were irritated by Mr Davis’s remark at the weekend that the withdrawal agreement was just a “statement of intent”. “It’s not helpful if people cast everything into doubt 24 hours later,” one source said. – The Times (£) Ministers move to avoid a defeat on EU Withdrawal Bill with concession on scrutiny of secondary legislation… The Government is scrambling to avoid a defeat on key Brexit legislation just hours before the Prime Minister travels to an EU summit on Thursday. The EU Withdrawal Bill will return to the House of Commons on Tuesday and Wednesday, before which Number 10 announced it was accepting a cross-party amendment on so-called Henry VIII powers. A “sifting” committee will now scrutinise those executive powers required to correct the UK’s post-Brexit statute book. But it is amendment seven, calling for a “meaningful vote” on the Brexit deal, that is causing the Government the most trouble. Tabled by senior Tory backbencher Dominic Grieve, and publicly signed by 10 Conservative MPs, it is set to be put to a vote on Wednesday night. – Sky News Theresa May unites Tories on Brexit (for now) – Politico Theresa May to accept new Brexit scrutiny committee – Guardian MPs must still have final say on EU withdrawal agreement – Nicky Morgan for The Times (£) > Watch on BrexitCentral’s Youtube Channel: Theresa May updates the House on Brexit negotiations … as government drafts new legislation to incorporate the deal The Withdrawal Agreement Implementation Bill (WAIB) will incorporate the finalised financial settlement, the citizens’ rights deal, Irish border compromise and transition arrangements into British legislation. But Mr Grieve has refused to withdraw his amendment, as it guarantees the WAIB would have to be passed as a pre-requisite for the Prime Minister signing off on the Brexit deal. This would accord the UK Parliament the same sanctioning power as the European Parliament. Potential Tory rebels have also been promised the issue will be dealt with in the report stage of the EU Withdrawal Bill, due in the New Year. But the group of MPs feels that promises made to them during the passage of the Article 50 Bill were not kept. – Sky News Tories and Labour reject second EU referendum petitions Both the Conservatives and Labour have rejected petitions calling for a second EU referendum to be held. MPs held a debate at Westminster in response to four petitions on Parliament’s e-petitions website. The largest one has attracted more than 130,000 signatures since September. Brexit minister Robin Walker said there would be no second referendum and Labour spokesman Paul Blomfield said he understood the “frustration” behind the petitions but ruled one out. The SNP’s Peter Grant said he would not rule out another Brexit referendum at this stage but added that people had to “live by the results of their decisions”. The largest petition calls for voters to be given a “final say” on the Brexit deal before the 2019 exit date. – BBC Corbyn refuses to firm up Labour’s Brexit plans Jeremy Corbyn is determined to resist pressure to spell out in more detail what Brexit settlement Labour would support, despite a series of comments in recent days suggesting the party is edging closer to advocating continued single market membership. The shadow cabinet will discuss Brexit at its weekly meeting on Tuesday, the first since Theresa May clinched the agreement of European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, to move on to the second phase of the negotiations. Several frontbenchers, including the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, and the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, have appeared to signal a shift towards arguing for the closest possible future relationship with the EU. – Guardian Incoherent, contradictory and palpably ridiculous – the Opposition’s Brexit policy is a farce – Henry Newman for ConservativeHome On Brexit, Labour is now for the few, not the many – Mark Wallace for ConservativeHome With Brexit on an even keel, it is time for the Tories to take the fight to Labour – William Hague for the Telegraph (£) UK to lead call for free trade at WTO’s biggest conference The UK will join the biggest ever conference on trade this week, joining 163 other members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox will attend the WTO Ministerial Conference in Argentina, the final one the UK will attend as a member of the EU. During the conference the government will call for an open and inclusive trading system, prioritising progress on digital trade, services and support for SMEs, as well as helping developing countries benefit from trade. As the UK moves onto trade discussions with the EU, it will continue its work at the WTO as it sets its own independent trade policy. As the UK prepares to leave the EU it will play a leading role in the WTO, championing trade to be more open and accessible. – Gov.uk Whitehall needs 1,300 extra staff to tackle next phase of Brexit Whitehall must hire an extra 1,300 specialists to deliver the next phase of the Brexit process, the chief executive of the civil service has disclosed. John Manzoni said the government still needed to bring in more civil servants to tackle the major challenge of preparing new infrastructure and border controls that will be required when the country quits the EU. “Do we have the people we need for today? Yes. Do we have the people we need to build all this stuff in 18 months? The answer is no, and we’ve got to get them,” he told the Public Accounts Committee on Monday. – Telegraph (£) Gove: I’ll make Brexit work for animals too The government has published a new law that says it must treat animals as “sentient beings” when it makes laws. Environment Secretary Michael Gove promised to “make Brexit work not just for citizens but for the animals we love and cherish too”. The draft law also increases the maximum sentence for serious animal cruelty to five years in jail. The Green Party said the government had done a “screeching u-turn”. – BBC Nigel Lawson calls for an to end Brexit negotiations Margaret Thatcher would have been “deeply concerned” by the concessions handed to the EU by Theresa May who has “lost her nerve” on Brexit, the former chancellor Lord Lawson has said. Delivering the annual Margaret Thatcher lecture, Lord Lawson condemned the Government for “wasting precious time” on trying to achieve an unnecessary trade deal. Speaking at the Carlton Club on Monday he said: “We find ourselves today quite unnecessarily as a supplicant, in a humiliating state of cringe, begging for what is both unnecessary and unattainable. “The time has come to call an end to this demeaning process. We must get up off our knees. Enough is enough.” – Telegraph (£) Lord Lawson tells Theresa May to stop ‘begging’ Brussels for a good deal – Huffington Post Theresa May tries to calm Eurosceptic nerves over Brexit deal – Katy Balls for The Spectator UK and Gibraltar meet to discuss Brexit The fifth meeting of the Joint Ministerial Council (Gibraltar EU Negotiations) took place in London today [Monday], with ministers in full agreement that Gibraltar’s specific interests must continue to be fully taken into account as the UK exits the EU. The discussions centred around areas such as financial services, taxation, and the implementation period. Robin Walker also updated the Deputy Chief Minister on progress in the first phase of negotiations. On Friday the UK Government and EU Commission published a joint report setting out its agreement on citizens’ rights, Ireland and Northern Ireland, and the financial settlement. – Gov.uk When Britain exits the EU, its diversity departs too Brexit will change the face of the European Union in many ways. For one, it will make it a lot whiter. In a bloc that hasn’t placed much focus on increasing the political representation of minorities, the U.K. stands out. Its history of conversations about race relations is wholly different from most of Europe. It’s home to some of the most extensive anti-discrimination legislation and scholarly discussions around race. And it tracks and actively promotes minority leadership in politics and businesses through government-funded programs. Activists and some politicians in Brussels have called for U.K.-esque policies to be implemented in the EU for years — but Brexit makes that far less likely. – Politico Matthew Elliott: Europe’s post-Brexit financial capital will be… London Ever since the U.K. voted to leave the EU last year (something I campaigned for), we have been told that thousands of jobs are set to leave London and drift toward other financial centers. In the weeks leading up to the vote, a succession of senior politicians and high-profile bankers, like Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, called on the British public to vote to remain in the bloc. Dimon personally warned that up to 4,000 jobs could leave Britain. According to these figures, it was the Britain’s EU membership — and its EU membership alone — that explained banks’ decision to base themselves in London. Leaving, their leaders warned, would result in financial turmoil and a so-called “Brexodus.” Despite the potency of these warnings — and the resonance they still have in some quarters of the press — the reality is quite different. – Matthew Elliott for Politico Jon Moynihan: Last week’s deal showed that the FT was wrong We Brexiters are optimistic about becoming, once again, a free trade nation; the FT, for all that I’m sure it believes strongly in free trade, promoting as it does human welfare, somehow thinks it better that we should remain within the EU’s protectionist tariff barriers, and let the EU strike our trade deals for us. However, the FT has majored in recent months on the belief that the EU “holds all the cards” and that we can only take whatever deal the EU dictates to us. Last week’s deal showed your belief was wrong… Can the FT please now modify its position to acknowledge that we are in a negotiation and that, for the sake of both the UK’s and the EU’s economies, a negotiating stance that promotes the sort of deal that allows the UK to have free trade deals with both the EU and the rest of the world is desirable, should be supported, and should not be scolded and rubbished at every turn? – Jon Moynihan in a letter to the FT Dan Hannan: ‘Canada +++’ free trade deal is the best formula for success after Brexit – and it won’t take seven years to negotiate So now what? The basic divorce terms have been agreed — the money, the status of Brits living in Europe and Europeans here, relations with Ireland. We’re at last getting stuck into the big question of our future deal with the EU. What might it look like?…Canada has as close a relationship with the EU as any country that doesn’t accept free movement and isn’t applying to join. It trades without any tariffs except in farming — and even there, the few tariffs that remain are low. It is often claimed the Canada-EU deal doesn’t cover services, which are Britain’s strong suit. But that isn’t quite true. The EU boasts that half the benefits from its Canada deal will come from services trade, including telecoms, shipping, finance and environmental services. – Dan Hannan MEP for the Sun Asa Bennett: Brussels knows the Brexit bill has strings attached. It would love an excuse to cut them off There was a lot to chew over in the deal Theresa May struck on the issues British negotiators have been grappling with for months around Brexit. The part that caught my eye last week, despite its lack of glamour, was the confirmation that “nothing would be agreed until everything is agreed”. That conforms to the European Union’s beloved negotiating mantra, but the British could use it as a way to deter them from trying to pocket the money on the table and offering little in return during the upcoming trade talks.,, The Prime Minister’s diplomatic gambit is, in short: If European leaders fail to give Britain value, why should they get its money? – Asa Bennett for the Telegraph (£) Ryan Bourne: The ‘level playing field’ line is a poor excuse for protectionism Occasionally a politician says something that personifies their worldview. Last week, it was Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who expressed the old eurocrat canard that free trade requires “a fair and level playing field”. Asked a Brexit-related question, Varadkar was quick to state that continued free trade across the Irish border required UK regulatory alignment on things such as the environment, food standards, and labour laws. *Read more*: With free trade, the Irish border is an issue for the EU, not the UK Such musings are terrible economics. – Ryan Bourne for City A.M. Stephen Booth: Is a Canada-esque trade deal the best option for Britain? Remaining fully aligned with the Single Market would mean accepting EU rules for the entire UK economy in perpetuity, without a say over them. That would mean less democratic accountability than we had as an EU member. We must also leave the Customs Union to control our own trade policy. Canada’s trade deal with the EU is the most comprehensive that Brussels has negotiated, and is a good starting point. – Stephen Booth for City A.M. Brexit comment in brief The opportunity to break with Europe’s high-tax orthodoxy should not be negotiated away – Telegraph editorial (£) What happens if Brexit and Canada Plus turn out to be absolutely fine? – Iain Martin for Reaction Brexiteers will regret their pact with Farage – Rachel Sylvester for The Times (£) The EU citizens (and their broods) who’ll have the right to stay here for ever – Andrew Tettenborn for ConservativeWoman What might a UK/EU Agreement look like? – John Redwood’s Diary This unhinged Brexit debate is increasingly irrelevant – Ben Ramanauskas for CapX How a clean Brexit would raise living standards – Daniel Huggins of Get Britain Out for CapX Moves to forge closer EU defense cooperation branded worrying – Peter Lyon for Get Britain Out We should be more enthusiastic about post-Brexit opportunities – Lord Flight for ConservativeHome Brexit news in brief Hammond sides with EU to demand Donald Trump drops tax reforms – Telegraph (£) EU trade deal could be sorted in 10 minutes claims ex- Shadow Chancellor – Express Davis: I don’t have to know a lot to be Brexit secretary – The Times (£) Don’t delay trade talks, Brexit negotiators told – The Times (£)