Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team UK official warns EU over talks ‘insult’… UK officials have warned the EU that its approach to Brexit negotiations risks damaging its security and economic relationship. It comes as a senior EU official said the UK was living in a “let’s just keep everything we have now… fantasy”. A UK official described those remarks as “laughable” and warned against “trying to insult us”. Meanwhile the UK says the EU should repay £1bn if it is excluded from the Galileo satellite navigation system. In a briefing on Thursday, following three days of Brexit talks, a senior EU official told journalists the UK was in a fantasy that everything could stay as it is, which would mean that the EU would have to change so that Britain could remain the same. “I’m a bit concerned because the precondition for fruitful discussions has to be the UK accepts the consequences of its own choices,” the official said. – BBC News …after EU accuses Britain of ‘chasing fantasy’ over plans to avoid hard Irish border… The European Union has accused Britain of “chasing the fantasy” of escaping the consequences of Brexit, as it ruled out UK plans to prevent a hard border in Ireland and build a new security relationship with the bloc. In a blistering attack that cast fresh doubt over the Brexit negotiations, a senior EU official said there had been little progress in talks in Brussels this week over the Irish border and the Galileo satellite project. The official definitively ruled out Britain’s continued involvement in the European Arrest Warrant extradition system, but said that any weakening of law enforcement capability would be Britain’s fault. – Telegraph (£) …and says Brits won’t be reimbursed for Galileo satellite funding There is “no basis” for the U.K.’s request to be reimbursed the €1 billion it contributed to the EU’s Galileo satellite system if it is frozen out of the project post Brexit, according to a senior EU official. In what amounts to an initial response from Brussels to a concerted push by the British government to retain access to the system beyond the country’s exit, the official said the European Commission was open to negotiation, but the U.K.’s position was “quite a big ask.” “I have the impression the U.K. thinks everything has to change on the EU side, so that everything remains the same on the U.K. side” – Politico We must be firm with arrogant EU bureaucrats ousting UK from Galileo project – The Sun Brexit transition will end in December 2020 as UK source denies reports of additional period Britain’s post-Brexit adaptation will run through 2020, as planned, a British government spokeswoman said on Thursday as the EU dismissed London’s ideas for a longer status quo on customs and trade in a fight over the Irish border. Both sides say they want to avoid a return of border checks on the island of Ireland after Brexit, but the European Union dismisses London’s idea to that end as unrealistic. The EU has hence insisted on a “backstop” plan stipulating that, should no better options be agreed, it would go on governing trade after Brexit on the whole island where both EU member Ireland and Britain’s province of Northern Ireland sit. That is, however, anathema to London, which is negotiating its divorce from a bloc it is due to exit next March. – Reuters Pro-EU supporters are being trained to ‘ruthlessly target MPs in a series of nationwide roadshows aimed at stopping Brexit’ Pro-EU supporters are being trained to ‘ruthlessly’ target MPs in a series of nationwide roadshows aimed at stopping Brexit, the Daily Mail has claimed. The Best for Britain campaign, which is backed by billionaire George Soros, is allegedly using the events to highlight ways activists can ‘press the right buttons’ to frighten politicians into voting against leaving Europe. The strategy reportedly includes getting negative stories about MPs in the local and national papers because these will ‘get to them on a personal level’. It also encourages mass phone-ins and letter-writing campaigns to get MPs with slim majorities into believing they will lose their seat if they support Brexit, the paper claims. Activists are told: ‘Like anyone, an MP is worried about keeping their job. ‘This is a very personal motivator, and raising uncertainty in their mind about this can have an enormous impact on their actions.’ – Daily Mail Tory MP quits Government job to take on ‘imbalanced’ Commons Brexit committee A Conservative MP has quit her Government role to concentrate on fighting the pro-Remain “imbalance” on a key Commons Brexit committee. Andrea Jenkyns, one of the 21 members of the Exiting the European Union Committee, said she had become “frustrated” at its attempts to “upset the democratic decision of the British people”. Brexiteers on the committee are outnumbered two to one by Remainers, and in a scathing attack on her colleagues Ms Jenkyns said reports produced by the committee “have been unbalanced in favour of us either remaining in the EU, the customs union or delaying our departure”. – Telegraph (£) MP resigns from UK government to obtain ‘right Brexit’ – Politico Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns quits government role ‘to fight for Brexit’ – BBC News Brexit deal could unleash ‘boom in investment’, says Mark Carney Mark Carney has claimed that progress in Brexit negotiations towards a “deep and special” relationship with the EU could unleash a “boom in investment” as cautious bosses dust off growth plans that have been on hold. Consumer spending could also rocket, the Governor of the Bank of England said, in a significant boost for the economy’s prospects. Earlier this week he said Brexit had hit economic growth by 2pc and reduced household incomes by £900 relative to the outcome of a Remain vote in the referendum. – Telegraph (£) Vote Leave boss calls MP’s bluff: “As empty as govt’s threats to EU” The chief architect of the Vote Leave campaign has told an MP that he will appear before any committee but his in the latest row between the pair. Earlier this month, DCMS Committee chair Damian Collins had sent Dominic Cummings a summons to appear before him and the other committee members as part of their ongoing inquiry into fake news, in reference to Cambridge Analytica. Cummings’ refused, prompting Collins to up the ante by threatening to seek Commons support to force him to attend. – City A.M. MPs demand answers over customs union MPs as varied as Hilary Benn, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Sammy Wilson have called for the government to urgently clarify its plans on the customs union after Brexit, amid suggestions the relationship could be extended until 2023. The Brexit Select Committee, chaired by Benn but representing a wide range of positions within the debate, has today published a damning report, saying it was “highly unsatisfactory” that nearly two years after the referendum, ministers had not even set out what post-Brexit trading and customs arrangements they hoped to make. – City A.M. Minister David Gauke plays down £20bn customs forecast – BBC News Aerospace sector revises ‘max-fac’ Brexit bill up an extra by £1bn a year – City A.M. Brexit customs union extension could be ‘only viable option,’ say MPs – Politico Ex-prisoners to replace migrant workers who leave after Brexit Serving lags will be let out on day release and allowed to take paid work to help tackle the job gap sparked by Brexit, the Justice Secretary revealed today. New measures will see prisoners go from behind bars to working in bars to try fill a shortfall of migrant workers from Europe when the UK leaves the EU. David Gauke wants to see more criminals released on licence to work in the community as Brexit is “likely to have an impact on the workforce in sectors such as catering, construction and agriculture”. Speaking at HMP Belmarsh, Mr Gauke is unveiling the Government’s latest attempt to slash the £15 billion cost of reoffending through a “cultural change” to get more former jailbirds into jobs. – The Sun Prisoners will be let out on early release to fill jobs left vacant after Brexit, Justice Secretary says – Telegraph (£) Theresa May warns Brussels bosses we’ll pull £1bn of funding from EU if we’re shut out of satellite programme – The Sun British MEPs should not quit on Brexit day, says Parliament legal report British MEPs and judges serving on the EU’s highest court should complete their mandates rather than being ousted on Brexit day, according to a legal analysis carried out for the European Parliament. The report, entitled “The institutional consequences of a ‘hard Brexit’” by Dublin City University Professor Federico Fabbrini, argues that lawmakers in the Parliament and judges serving on the European Court of Justice represent EU citizens as a whole and not individual countries. – Politico Former chief Brussels adviser attacks Brexiters and Remainers The former chief Brussels adviser to both David Cameron and Theresa May has launched a thinly-veiled attack on the “buccaneering blather” of Cabinet Brexiters Boris Johnson and Liam Fox. Sir Ivan Rogers, who resigned in 2017 in frustration at the government’s handling of Brexit, blasted people “professing themselves free traders who have only a hazy understanding about multilateral, regional and bilateral free trade deals, have never negotiated one – but know it’s straightforward, once one has left the EU. – City A.M. New Zealand happy to forget the UK’s ‘betrayal’ It was a story of break-up and betrayal, and of a long-distance relationship that went sour. It’s not a cliffhanger from Shortland Street, New Zealand’s longest-running TV soap opera, but a real-life tale of abandonment. It happened back in January 1973 to the South Pacific nation when the UK joined the then European Economic Community (EEC), the precursor to today’s European Union. At the time, about half of Kiwi exports were shipped 18,500 km (11,500 miles) to the UK, but access to those prized markets would effectively end as a result of the UK joining the EEC. “It was a massive shock. It was an emotional shock for New Zealand,” says Asha Sundaram from the University of Auckland. “Almost 50% of New Zealand exports went to the UK at the time, and so there was huge anxiety about what would happen. “Essentially New Zealand was like an outpost of Britain [back then]. It was this parent-child relationship, and I think people were just terrified of the apron strings being cut off. – BBC News The secret Tory leadership contest is now heating up …Cummings’ intervention comes just days after the launch of the new Conservative think tank, Onward. Its aim is to help reshape the party to appeal to younger generations (anyone under 47), but what has sparked a media flurry is the group’s two headline backers: Michael Gove and Ruth Davidson. And what a pair they are. Gove has spent the post-referendum years rehabilitating his image after his ill-conceived leadership bid. In a stunning recovery, he has used his responsibility over one of the least-coveted governmental briefs – environment, farming and rural affairs – to metamorphose into an ecological champion, the architect of a “green Brexit”, crusader against plastic cups and wood-burning stoves. It’s been quite a turnaround, but by focusing on how Brexit could become a force for environmental good, Gove has managed to tap into the Blue Planet-inspired tide of public support. – City A.M. Theresa May needs to quit as Prime Minister over ‘Greek tragedy’ Brexit talks, says major Conservative party donor – Telegraph (£) Sajid Javid could be the leader-in-waiting the Tories need to restore purpose to the party – Fraser Nelson for the Telegraph (£) Theresa May’s Brexit ‘strategy’ is a shambles – Dominic Cummings for The Spectator Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Juncker’s ‘torture tools’ are useless against Italy’s well-armed uprising Brussels prides itself on well-honed ways to bring recalcitrant governments to heel. “We have instruments of torture in the basement,” jokes Jean-Claude Juncker… A crude attempt to bully the Lega and Davide Casaleggio’s Five Star techno-mystics risks defiance and a dangerous chain-reaction, ending in a €2 trillion default on German credits to southern Europe and the devastation of the EU project. The enforcers must be subtle. They will try to peel off the softer Five Star ‘Grillini’, those such as nominal leader Luigi di Maio are already showing eagerness for EU approval. They will exploit divisions in Italian society just as they are doing in Brexit Britain. They will mobilize the ‘poteri forti’ of Confindustria and the mandarin class. – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard In Brussels for the Telegraph (£) Mick Hume: The real ‘Tory Brexit lie’… …is the myth that May’s government is fighting to leave the EU at all It’s one of the biggest myths in British politics: the nonsensical notion that Theresa May’s Tory government is wilfully hurtling headlong towards a ‘reckless hard/cliff-edge/kamikaze’ Brexit at all costs and despite all opposition. This is the real ‘Tory Brexit lie’. The truth is far worse than that. May’s moribund Conservative government seems incapable of ‘hurtling’ towards anything. But it is creeping and occasionally lurching backwards, further away from the meaningful Brexit that 17.4million Leave voters wanted and ever-closer to a surrender that would mean accepting Remain by another name.- Mick Hume for Spiked Asa Bennett: Why would the DUP ever junk Theresa May? The Democratic Unionist Party showed in December that it would not let its £1 billion deal with Theresa May to prop up her government stop it threatening to bring it all down by derailing the Brexit talks.Since then the DUP sought to steel the prime minister’s resolve, with its MPs urging her to embody the unionist mantra of “no surrender” as she grapples with Brussels.Yet Brexiteers fear the reverse is happening, with Jacob Rees-Mogg accusing the government this week of “preparing for failure” by offering to “kowtow before [Michel Barnier] in every way you possibly want”. – Asa Bennett for the Telegraph (£) Christian May: Anti-Brexit party can’t quite get its act together Politics isn’t easy, just ask Chris Coghlan, the former civil servant who left Whitehall late last year to set up a new, centrist anti-Brexit party.Alas, it hasn’t worked out. Despite all the giddy optimism and talk of a Macron-style revolution, the embryonic party (they have a couple of councillors) is busy tearing itself apart. Coghlan has quit, citing irreconcilable differences with party officials. He claims to have founded the party as “the British public were tired of the politics of division”. That may be true, but it didn’t stop his own political movement succumbing to, well, serious division. – City A.M. Comment in Brief Brexiteers should cheer on Brussels as it strikes free trade deals with Australia and New Zealand – James Crisp for the Telegraph (£) Brexit, Windrush, and the rebirth of liberal Britain – Tony Sewell for ConservativeHome Max Fac mirage looks done for – Iain Martin for Reaction New polls find no surge in support for Northern Ireland leaving the UK – Henry Hill for ConservativeHome The finely-balanced votes on the Withdrawal Bill amendments come down to how many Labour MPs will abstain – Mark Wallace for ConservativeHome France and Brexit: lessons from history – Graham Gudgin for Briefings for Brexit Italy’s crazy gang put two fingers up to Brussels – Chris McGovern for ConservativeWoman Seven truth bombs that mean Brexit is dead – ConservativeWoman My Republic of Ireland focus groups on Brexit. They agree that the UK is making a terrible mistake. – Lord Ashcroft for ConservativeHome News in Brief ONS: The non-UK born population rose last year – City A.M. Eurocrats plan to spend £440m defence fund on building killer robots which can wage warfare without human help – The Sun Norway’s love letter to the EU – Politico Romanians leapfrog Irish to be the second largest group of foreigners in Britain – behind only the Polish – The Sun Brexiteer MPs blast PM for delaying Brexit vote until after Labour by-election – The Sun New dossier raises fears the Government will go soft on breaking free from Euro judges after Brexit – The Sun