Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Jeremy Corbyn to set out Labour’s Brexit plans this morning… A Labour government would negotiate “full tariff-free” access to EU markets for UK businesses after Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn is to say in a speech. The Labour leader is expected to confirm his support for permanent membership of a customs union after the UK leaves the EU in March 2019. He will also pledge to protect jobs and guarantee existing rights. PM Theresa May will set out the government’s vision of future economic relations with the EU on Friday. – BBC News Jeremy Corbyn calls for ‘new, strong’ single market relationship – Politico Corbyn rejects ‘outright membership’ of Single Market- Daily Mirror …in which he would seek to prevent the UK from striking free trade deals Britain will be unable to sign and negotiate trade deals without the European Union’s support after Brexit under Labour’s plans to keep the UK in a customs union with the bloc. Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, warned it was now “crunch time” for Theresa May over her approach to the customs union, and said it would be “better” to reach “bold” new trade agreements by working with the EU. Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade secretary, confirmed that being in a customs union with Brussels would mean the UK and EU “jointly” doing deals with third party countries. – Telegraph (£) If reports are accurate, there is at least one thing in Jeremy Corbyn’s speech today with which I will agree: “The EU is not the root of all our problems and leaving it will not solve all our problems. Likewise the EU is not the source of all enlightenment and leaving it does not inevitably spell doom for our country. Brexit is what we make of it together.” Yet this makes his overall conclusion, that we should stay in “a” customs union with the European Union, all the more baffling. That would be the worst of all worlds. It would be, in an inversion of the Labour Party’s phrase, “for the few, not the many”. – Matt Ridley for The Times (£) Starmer: Labour wants a customs union and could join Tory rebels – Guido Fawkes Labour tying Britain into customs union is ‘betrayal of voters’, claims senior MP, as party divisions laid bare – Telegraph (£) Jeremy Corbyn accused of ‘ratting’ on Brexit over EU customs union U-turn – The Sun Jeremy Corbyn is selling ‘snake oil’ over Brexit, says David Davis – Telegraph (£) Why Ruth Davidson must oppose the Customs Union – Brian Monteith for the Scotsman A customs union would avoid the worst of all post-Brexit worlds – Wolfgang Münchau for the FT (£) As Turkey shows us, a customs deal with a non-EU member is possible – Nicky Morgan MP for ConservativeHome Embracing soft Brexit would be risky for Corbyn. But it’s still the smart move – Matthew d’Ancona for the Guardian Corbyn’s pro-customs union Brexit policy is a messy compromise. – Christian May for City A.M. Leaving the EU means leaving the customs union too – that’s what the public voted for – Sun editorial > Watch on BrexitCentral’s YouTube Channel: Sir Keir Starmer reveals Labour want a customs union (full interview) > Watch on BrexitCentral’s YouTube Channel: Liam Fox: 90% of global growth will be outside Europe > Watch on BrexitCentral’s YouTube Channel: IDS: In a customs union we’d have to listen to what the EU says on trade > Labour’s Barry Gardiner in July: Brexit means leaving the single market and the customs union. Here’s why Irish border issue is being used as an ‘excuse’ to thwart Brexit, DUP warns… The Irish border issue is being used as an “excuse” to thwart Brexit, the DUP’s Westminster leader has warned. Nigel Dodds said critics who claim that Britain must stay in the Customs Union to retain an open border are “misconceived”. He told Peston on Sunday on ITV1: “Some people who are now using the excuse that because of the Northern Ireland open border situation, because of the need to avoid a hard border, because of the protection of the Belfast agreement, that somehow this all demands certain things like membership of the Customs Union. Telegraph (£) …as the EU is reportedly to entrench its position over the Northern Ireland border The political truce over Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit status threatens to be shattered this week, as the EU publishes a draft withdrawal agreement that leaves out crucial compromise language secured by British prime minister Theresa May. The European Commission will on Wednesday reveal its full legal text of Britain’s exit treaty, explicitly outlining a last-resort option for Northern Ireland to remain under the EU’s regulatory regime so a hard border on the island can be avoided. – FT (£) > Watch on BrexitCentral’s YouTube Channel: Nigel Dodds: Misconceived idea of Irish border being used to thwart Brexit David Lidington to seek to scotch claims of Brexit power grab today The Cabinet Office minister David Lidington will on Monday promise “a very big change” to a key Brexit bill in the hope of resolving the deadlock between London and the devolved administrations over what happens to powers being repatriated from Brussels. In a speech in north Wales, Lidington will say “the vast majority of powers returning from Brussels will start off in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast – and not in Whitehall”. He will propose government amendments to that effect in the EU withdrawal bill, saying these will put “beyond doubt our commitment to a smooth and orderly departure from the EU, in a way that doesn’t just respect the devolution settlements, but strengthens and enhances them”. – Guardian Spain adds Gibraltar demands to Brexit deal Theresa May faces a Tory mutiny after Spain demanded joint management of Gibraltar’s airport as the price of a Brexit deal. Spain’s foreign minister Alfonso Dastis also said Madrid wanted greater cooperation on tax and tobacco smuggling. The demands stop short of a full demand for sovereignty. But it threatens to spark yet more uproar among Tory backbenchers furious the Government hasn’t stood up to Spain on the issue of the Rock. Mr Dastis wants an agreement by next month’s crucial EU summit where Britain hopes to seal a Brexit transition deal. Last year Brussels gave the Spanish government a formal veto over the provisions of any EU-UK Brexit deal that apply to the territory. – The Sun Office for Budget Responsibility ready to dramatically hike growth forecasts The Office for Budget Responsibility is set for an embarrassing U-turn as it prepares to dramatically hike forecasts for UK growth just months after they were suddenly downgraded. The OBR slashed assumptions in November, reining in expected productivity growth and warning that the deficit would rise in this financial year. However, strong numbers in the intervening period mean economists expect the watchdog to reverse some of that gloom, a move that would shrink the deficit and deliver a £15bn windfall to the Chancellor. Growth in the UK’s dominant services industry has surged in the last three months with profits rising at the fastest pace since November 2015, according to a new CBI survey. – Telegraph (£) Project Fear gets another kicking as gloomy forecasts set to be reversed – The Sun UK targets Indonesia in first test of ‘Global Britain’ strategy British engineers could be handed lucrative contracts with Indonesia to regenerate its ailing road and rail networks under a government push to boost trade and diplomatic ties with Southeast Asia after Brexit, the Telegraph has learned. The move would pit British firms against Chinese and Japanese trade giants who are vying for influence over Indonesia’s booming economy, in one of the first tests of the UK’s post-Brexit “Global Britain” strategy. “We are trying to get a greater slice of the action,” Moazzam Malik, the British ambassador in Indonesia, told the Telegraph as UK officials unveiled the new plan to woo Indonesian investors. Telegraph (£) Tory chiefs planning away day for every MP in desperate bid to reunite a party over Brexit Tory chiefs are planning an away-day “bonding session” for every single MP in a desperate bid to reunite a party divided by Brexit. Tory chair Brandon Lewis and No.10 plan a day-long event this Spring – the first since a pre-Referendum get together under David Cameron before the EU Referendum. A date was set for the middle of April before Downing Street warned that clashed with Theresa May hosting a Commonwealth summit in London. It comes two years after 300 MPs turned up for an away-day – and a free bar- organised by ex-PM David Cameron. – The Sun ‘Back me or sack me’ Theresa May ready for EU customs union Commons showdown – Express Come back, Theresa! All is forgiven – Neil Jopson for CommentCentral Brexiting bad: Five ways the UK could go rogue The U.K. and the EU often act as if London, standing with its back to a cliff edge, has little leverage in the Brexit talks. But that’s only true if the British insist on acting like, um, well-behaved Englishmen. In Brussels, a widely understood, if little discussed, secret is that the U.K. could wreak chaos on its way out of the EU — so long as Prime Minister Theresa May and her government are willing to go rogue. That would be a major departure and would undoubtedly lead to retaliation from Brussels. But if May decides she has nothing to lose, here are four ways the U.K. could exercise its veto power in the European Council (which it retains until Jacob Rees-Mogg’s pocket watch strikes 11 p.m. on March 29, 2019) to make mischief. And there’s one other course of action that could prove even more disruptive. – Politico David Davis: By supporting a customs union, Labour are ripping up their manifesto When Jeremy Corbyn stands up on Monday to announce his latest policy on Brexit he seems certain to break the commitments he made to Labour voters at the last election. We know from the Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer that the new agreement Labour will seek will “do the work of the customs union”, though we will have to wait for the Labour leader himself to discover which linguistic word game they will use to dress it up.Either way, it is unlikely to save the blushes of the Shadow International Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner, who said that “in voting to leave the EU the British people voted to leave both the single market and the customs union” and that retaining membership of a customs union would be “deeply unattractive”. – David Davis for the Telegraph (£) Neil MacKinnon: Now the fog has lifted, the UK’s post-Brexit future looks bright In the 18 months following the Brexit referendum, the forecasts from the Treasury, the Bank of England, the IMF, and the OECD were proven wrong. The predicted recession, higher unemployment and a list of other calamities did not happen. Nobel Prize winning economist professor Paul Krugman described the analysis from the Project Fear propagandists as “intellectual slumming”. – Neil MacKinnon for City A.M. Kathy Gyngell: Every Brexit delay is a bonus for the EU – it’s time for May to stop talking and walk out The politics of fear never works. Short-term gain leads to long-term pain. Putting party above principle is a mistake. You could apply any of these aphorisms to the Brexit mess that Mrs May has got the country into. But since the Brexit Cabinet descended on Chequers on Friday, the commentators – bar Charles Moore – are sounding notes of optimism. Only Moore seems prepared to say it as it is, which is that we are all still in the dark. – Kathy Gyngell for ConservativeWoman Clare Foges: May’s carnival of indecision over Brexit has cost us dear Clear the diary. Order the popcorn. The prime minister is scheduled to give another big Brexit speech this week, when the definitive strategy will finally be revealed. From reports of the recent Chequers meeting, we can guess the gist: “Let me be clear that Britain is clear about what we want. Leave means leave, which means compliance and divergence; divergent compliance. We will have a red, white and blue Brexit, but one that is also not incompatible with yellow and blue. The EU might be the masters of our ship for a transitional period, but ultimately we will be the captains of our soul. -Clare Foges for the Times (£) Comment in Brief What can Turkey, Switzerland, and the microstate of Andorra teach us about the EU customs union? – Andrew Lilico for the Telegraph (£) Tony Blair has made himself Sinn Fein’s useful idiot – Charles Moore for the Telegraph (£) Why Barnier should consider mutual regulatory recognition – Miles Celic for City A.M. How many Conservative MPs would risk Prime Minister Corbyn over Brexit?.- Katy Balls for The Spectator Italians watch Brexit. Election heralds more chaos for EU – Tim Hedges for The Commentator Even being pro-Trump didn’t lose me as many friends as being pro-Brexit – James Delingpole for The Spectator News in Brief Italy resigns itself to the euro but risks remain – Politico Angela Merkel’s CDU to vote on German coalition deal – Guardian