Liam Fox says Britain could be like Turkey and remain part of the customs union after leaving the EU… Britain could replicate Turkey’s relationship with the EU and remain a partial member of Europe’s customs union after Brexit, International Trade Secretary Dr Liam Fox signalled yesterday. He insisted Britain’s departure from the EU was not like a ‘boiled egg’ and there were more options than going for either a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ Brexit. Remaining a full member of the customs union would mean the UK could keep the same international tariffs on goods and services as the rest of the EU. – Daily Mail Any transitional deal with EU should not diminish Brexit vote, says Fox – Reuters Fox says trade will suffer in ‘Europe-minus’ UK… but deals with ‘world-plus’ will replace it, he insists – Daily Mail …as George Osborne warns post-Brexit deals should not be ‘at price of EU free trade ties’ Post-Brexit trade deals should not “come at a price” to existing agreements with other EU nations, ex-chancellor George Osborne says. But he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr the UK needed a “hard-headed assessment” of issues such as the EU customs union. On the same programme, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox did not reveal his stance on the customs union, which sets standard tariffs EU-wide. He said he was “a free trader”, but the government would reach a view. Staying a member of the customs union would, however, mean “limitations” on the UK’s ability to set its own trade tariffs, which would in turn limit the kind of deals it could do with the rest of the world, Mr Fox added. – BBC George Osborne: Keep foreign students out of net migration – The Times (£) UK jobs market to defy Brexit gloom in 2017, says CBI Britain’s science and technology industries are expected to lead another leap in hiring next year, in another vote of confidence in the economy following the Brexit vote, according to the Confederation of British Industry. The country’s jobs-rich recovery will be given a big boost as “almost every part” of the private sector hires more staff over the next 12 months, the UK’s business group’s annual employment survey found. The research showed 41pc of companies expect to grow their workforces in 2017, compared with just 13pc that believe their payrolls will shrink. – Daily Telegraph Japanese giant Nissan posts UK profits jump after Brexit deal The UK arm of Nissan has posted a jump in annual profits just weeks after the Government controversially intervened to ensure the Japanese car-making giant would keep investing in its major Sunderland factory following Brexit. Nissan’s British subsidiary posted a near-22pc surge in pre-tax profits to £116.9m for the 12 months to the end of March, despite revenues dipping by 1.4pc to £5.19bn and production sliding by 3,000 vehicles to 478,000. – Daily Telegraph Journalists and unions accuse EU-backed Euronews of pandering to oppressive regimes Euronews, the rolling news channel which was set up to provide a European counterpoint to the American news network CNN, has been reduced to a second-rate news service broadcasting “sponsored” propaganda programmes for oppressive regimes, its journalists and unions say. Staff at the multi-language channel – which gets about a third of its funding in subsidies from the European Union – went on strike this week after workers backed a no-confidence motion against the station’s management. – Daily Telegraph How David Cameron lost his battle for Britain The Financial Times has spoken to key participants to piece together the story of a remarkable year in British and European politics, a story of political hubris, strategic mistakes, tactical blunders and gut-wrenching despair as Britain’s establishment was swept aside by a populist uprising… Roland Rudd, treasurer of the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign, admits that the “cross-party” effort was fatally compromised because it became “the tool of the Number 10 campaign”. Mr Cameron, he says, refused to sanction “blue on blue” attacks on Mr Johnson and Mr Gove. “We needed to attack them,” he adds… Across the river Thames at the headquarters of Vote Leave — the official Brexit campaign — Matthew Elliott could not believe his luck. “I was surprised they didn’t go after Michael Gove and Boris Johnson more,” the campaign chief executive says. “I thought they were going to lash them in with Nigel Farage and Ukip and make out they were all part of the same gang, all crazy, rightwing nutters.” – George Parker in the FT (£) Brexit will mean cuts for the rest of the EU, Denmark says Without Britain’s contributions, the remaining European Union members will need to get by on a smaller budget, according to Denmark. No one, including Germany, wants to fill the 7.6 billion-euro ($7.9 billion) hole that will be left once Britain — a net contributor to the EU — leaves the bloc, Danish Finance Minister Kristian Jensen said in an interview in Copenhagen on Friday. “The EU cannot continue spending the same amount of money when one of the largest countries, one of the largest contributors, leaves,” said Jensen, who had been foreign minister before a new Danish government was formed last month. – Bloomberg Revealed: the ‘monster’ EU hardliners accused of trying to ‘blow up’ Brexit by poisoning the negotiations European demands for a £50 billion divorce settlement are part of a plot by anti-British hardliners in the European Commission to “blow up” the forthcoming Brexit negotiations before they even get started, British officials have told The Telegraph. Senior officials in three separate Whitehall departments said they now feared that the “absurd” figures being bandied around at this week’s European Council summit in Brussels were part of a plan to back Britain into an impossible corner on the politically combustible issue of EU budgets payments. – Daily Telegraph Fears EU Brexit delays will spur bank exodus to eurozone EU Brexit negotiators are insisting Britain agrees to its European divorce settlement before Brussels offers any transitional deal, expecting international banks to get cold feet over losing “passporting” rights and start shifting operations from London to the eurozone. British chancellor Philip Hammond said this month that he wanted to discuss an interim deal “early on in the negotiations” to reassure the City of London that there would be no regulatory cliff-edge in March 2019, the date set for Britain’s exit from the union. – FT (£) Nicola Sturgeon Brexit power grab ‘a risk to free trade with England’ Nicola Sturgeon has been warned that aligning Scotland’s business regime with the EU’s as a means of staying in the single market risks damaging free trade with England, as she prepares to unveil her proposals for a special Brexit deal. The First Minister is expected on Tuesday to call for the devolution of regulatory powers over goods, trade and business and power over immigration in an options paper examining how Scotland could stay in the single market even if the rest of the UK leaves. – Daily Telegraph Salmond says Yes will win next referendum if Westminster rejects Scottish Brexit deal – The Herald Home Office expands quicker residence application process for EU citizens The Home Office is expanding tests of its online application form for EU citizens seeking permanent residence in the UK ahead of Brexit, while also considering ways to help the less web-savvy by enlisting local councils to check paper forms. The web system was first piloted over the summer by a restricted group of about 20 corporate clients, and helped cut the response time for residence applications from months to weeks. This Monday, the department is extending the service beyond EU nationals to cover their families and dependants. However, it will still be available only to professional firms so the process can be fully tested before it is rolled out more widely next year. – FT (£) Fears over human rights of EU nationals being used as ‘Brexit bargaining chips’ The human rights of EU nationals resident in the UK must not be used as bargaining chips in Brexit negotiations, a parliamentary watchdog has warned. The Joint Committee on Human Rights has urged Prime Minister Theresa May to secure the status of the estimated 2.9 million people from the EU living in the UK at the start of the Article 50 negotiations by reaching a separate preliminary agreement on the matter. – The Independent Ex-civil service chief plea: ‘Ministers must pull together for Brexit’ Ministers need to “stop briefing against each other” and pull together as a team to forge a Brexit deal, according to the former civil service head. Lord O’Donnell, a cabinet secretary to Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, reckoned Britain leaving the EU will be the toughest challenge to face a British leader in years. And he warned the UK faces “very negative” negotiations in Brussels. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour, he said: “It’s very difficult round the Cabinet table to get two groups who have been in completely different positions together. – ITV News Roger Bootle: Glass half full at leaving the EU? Look at the gains of truly free trade At the centre of disputes about how the UK will fare outside the EU lies concern about trade. Remainers argue that, unless we manage to secure a deal, our exports will have to face the EU’s common external tariff (CET) and presumably we will impose the equivalent on the EU’s exports to us, thereby reducing trade in both directions. From this all sorts of bad things follow – a loss of the usual efficiency gains from trade, reduced economies of scale in production, and lower investment, by both overseas firms and British ones. It all sounds pretty dreadful. But things don’t have to turn out like this, and if we play our cards right, they won’t. It is widely believed that the EU is a free trade area. It is not. It is a customs union. There are no tariffs on trade between members and the EU seeks to minimise non-tariff barriers between members (although the service sector is nothing like a true single market). – Roger Bootle for the Daily Telegraph Nicola Sturgeon MSP: Scotland’s plan to protect its place in the European single market The proposals we will publish this week involve a substantial degree of compromise on our part. It is hoped they will find a similarly open mind from the UK government, who have already pledged to consider them. Theresa May, prime minister, has given that explicit undertaking, so a failure to properly engage would represent a breach of faith. To be clear, it is not the Scottish government’s position that we expect to negotiate directly with the EU institutions or other member states. Rather, our intention is for the proposals to be agreed with the UK government, which will then take them forward as part of their overall negotiating position around Article 50. – Nicola Sturgeon MSP in the FT (£) Brexit comment in brief The UK should stop negotiating with itself – John Redwood’s Diary Brexit news in brief Pro-Brexit newspapers ‘in a panic’ says Labour MEP criticised for ‘sabotaging’ quitting EU – Huffington Post Ireland says EU exceeded powers in Apple case – Politico Five people who made Brexit happen. 1) Daniel Hannan – ConservativeHome