Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Donald Tusk slams Government’s Brexit plans as ‘pure illusion’ The UK’s approach to the next stage of Brexit negotiations seems to be based on “pure illusion”, Donald Tusk says. The European Council president told a news conference in Brussels that the UK was still trying to “cherry pick” its future relationship with the EU. Mr Tusk said he could only go on media reports of Brexit talks at the PM’s country retreat Chequers on Thursday. Theresa May is set to deliver a key speech setting out British ambitions on Friday of next week. Mr Tusk, who is due to meet the PM the day before, said media reports suggested that the “cake philosophy is still alive” in the UK. He added: “If the media reports are correct I am afraid that the UK position today is based on pure illusion.” – BBC News > Watch on BrexitCentral’s Youtube Channel: Tusk says UK Brexit plans are ‘pure illusion’ Brexit War Cabinet agreement – Everything we know The Brexit ‘War Cabinet’ met at Chequers for a marathon 8-hour discussion to decide their opening Brexit position. Between 2pm and 10pm they used the Prime Minister’s grace and favour manor house to discuss EU regulations post-Brexit. The committe paused for sweetcorn soup, ham hock croquette and slow braised Guinness short rib of Dexter beef. For dessert they had lemon tart with raspberry sorbet and fresh raspberries. The group agreed to mutual recognition of goods, with a declaration that the UK intends to maintain EU standards. Crucially though, the UK won’t do so in perpetuity. The committee agreed the need for Britain to have the right to diverge on regulations, to be overseen by a neutral dispute settlement procedure. – BrexitCentral There were several peculiarities about Thursday’s Chequers summit, billed in advance as the big Brexit punch-up after which the government would have finalised its opening negotiating stance with the European Union. First, while 12 members of the cabinet were sequestered in Theresa May’s 16th-century Buckinghamshire manor house for eight hours, they spent less than three of them deciding that stance. The rest of their time was devoted to more wide-ranging, and altogether less contentious, discussion and debate. Another was the fact that three of Brexit’s biggest issues — customs, migration and which areas the UK plans to diverge from after Brexit — were not dwelt on in detail even though underlying tensions remain unresolved. – The Times (£) Tory Brexit rebels plan to vote for a customs union with the EU… Theresa May is facing the biggest test of her fragile parliamentary authority as more than ten Tory MPs announced that they would vote to keep Britain in a customs union with Europe. Two of the party’s select committee chairmen and three former ministers put their name to an amendment that would force the prime minister to put Britain’s membership of a customs union back on the negotiating table. The announcement came hours after the cabinet’s Brexit committee signed off a policy that Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, said excluded a customs deal with the European Union. Instead the government is expected to pursue a policy of so-called “managed divergence” where Britain agrees to follow EU rules in specific areas in return for market access but with the freedom to diverge at a future date. – The Times (£) Tory rebels believe they can prevent Britain’s exit from EU customs union – i news Why I will be tabling amendments to the Trade Bill to explore joining EFTA – Stephen Hammond for ConservativeHome Remainers’ plot to stay in an EU customs union would be a staggering betrayal of our democracy – The Sun editorial …as Downing Street insiders claim their efforts will fail A shock bid by Tory MPs to keep Britain in an EU customs union will collapse once Theresa May spells out plans for a new borders “partnership”, No. 10 insiders claimed last night. Sources told The Sun the PM will detail her hopes for a future post-Brexit customs arrangement as early as next Friday to see off an attempted ‘Brexit coup’.It came as Tory backbencher Anna Soubry teamed up with Labour Europhile Chuka Umunna to table an amendment to the Government’s Trade Bill to try and force the PM to keep Britain in a customs union. Sources immediately claimed between 10 to 15 Tories are already backing it – enough to threaten the Government’s majority. – The Sun London racing to avoid Brexit driving licence roadblock The British government is hoping a five-decade old U.N. treaty can ensure its motorists still have access to EU roads post Brexit. The U.K.’s departure from the bloc threatens to end the mutual recognition of driver’s licenses, a European Commission briefing pointed out this week. Although British officials say they are “confident” a deal can be sealed that would ensure drivers from both sides can still roam freely with only their local pass, the backup option involves London ratifying a 50-year old U.N. treaty by March 2019. Even that would still pile on the paperwork for British motorists making the short run to Calais to stock up on wine, and pose a nightmare for car hire firms, hauliers and insurance companies. – Politico EU funding linked to migrant quotas Deep west versus east divisions have emerged after Germany proposed cutting EU funding to poorer central and eastern European countries that accepted fewer refugees during the migration crisis. The EU27 leaders met yesterday in Brussels to begin talks about how to plug a hole of over €100 billion in the EU’s seven-year budget after Brexit. There are divisions between “net contributors”, those that put more into the Brussels budget than they get out in funding, and beneficiary countries in central, southern and eastern Europe over how to meet the shortfall. Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden have refused to pay more, while France and Germany are extremely reluctant to make extra payments that will play badly with voters. – The Times (£) EU leaders: We won’t be bound by Spitzenkandidat process The European election might be 15 months away but the Spitzenkandidat has already lost, sort of. EU leaders on Friday rejected an automatic mechanism for selecting the next Commission president that they believe strips them of the power to pick Europe’s most senior official. Meeting at an informal summit in Brussels, leaders of the 27 countries that will remain in the EU after Brexit rebuffed any guarantee of victory for a nominee from the so-called Spitzenkandidat (or “lead candidate”) process, which was first used in 2014 in the election of Jean-Claude Juncker. But in a classic display of EU squishiness, the leaders acknowledged that a lead candidate could well become the Commission president — but at their discretion and without any “automaticity.” – Politico New NFU President Minette Batters: ‘Britain isn’t one big national park… food must drive Brexit agenda’ At weekends Minette Batters is up at 5.30am on her tractor with her four dogs to check on the cattle and sheep, before sitting down for coffee with a copy of The Secret Life of Cows. Now she is on the Eurostar heading for Brussels and a meeting with bureaucrats, flicking through EU briefing papers and statistics. Instead of wellies and a quilted jacket she is wearing heeled boots and a business suit…Until now, she points out, politicians have been able to pass the buck to Brussels, blaming the common agricultural policy for any problems. Now, as the UK draws up its own plans for agriculture, she says: “It’s really important the government plays a part in ensuring that society does function fairly and farmers receive a fair price for the goods that they produce.” – Interview for The Times (£) Charles Moore: We – and Brussels – still really need to know: what is going on in Theresa May’s head? The old Spitting Image joke about Margaret Thatcher is so famous that people think it actually happened. The waiter at Chequers takes Mrs Thatcher’s order. She asks for steak. “And the vegetables?” ventures the waiter. “Oh,” she says, waving dismissively towards her Cabinet colleagues, “they’ll be having the same.” Theresa May’s method seems to be almost exactly the opposite. The “vegetables” say what they want, and try to order for her as well. She says nothing. No one knows what she wants. Her future biographer (no, I am not volunteering) will have to decide whether this technique was very deep or merely vacuous. In this troublous and confusing present, it is hard to know. – Charles Moore for the Telegraph (£) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Amnesty has strayed badly with its ideological attack on Brexit The late Robert Conquest’s “Second Law of Politics” is that “any organisation not explicitly Right-wing sooner or later becomes Left-wing”. He cited Amnesty International. I would modify this to any organisation that does not explicitly defend the liberal democratic nation state ends up becoming a captive of EU ideology. Amnesty splashed its annual global report for 2017/2018 with an emphatic “Brexit: a risk to your human rights”. This was unwise. Amnesty has done wonderful work over the years – and members of my family are ardent supporters (some Brexiteers, some not, like every family in the land). But it has moved a long way from its original purist aim of defending prisoners of conscience. Mission creep has taken over. – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard for the Telegraph (£) James Kirkup: Does Seumas Milne hold Brexit’s fate in his hands? Could Britain remain in the Customs Union after Brexit? That is the question of the moment, the issue that currently troubles a lot of people in politics and government. It raises another question: who will decide whether we do indeed remain in the Customs Union? Here’s an interesting answer being given, in whispers, around Westminster and Whitehall: Seumas Milne.The theory goes like this: the Tories are split on the CU, so Labour’s position on it will be decisive. – James Kirkup for The Spectator Comment in Brief Does Jeremy Corbyn think Leave voters are too thick to notice him offering Brexit in name only? – Tom Harris for the Telegraph (£) Canada’s Northwest Passage dispute could deliver us a Brexit bonus — if we play it right – Andrew Lilico for the Telegraph (£) Labour’s Brexit fudge would allow the EU to sign us up to deals like TTIP with no veto or NHS safeguard – Mark Wallace for ConservativeHome Merkel’s list of failures is only getting longer – Marian L.Tupy for CapX James Holland: Defending free trade will be more important than ever after Brexit – James Holland for Reaction Restoring our fish and farms – John Redwood’s Diary Foolish ways the EU wastes British taxpayers’ money – Get Britain Out’s Robert Bates for Conservative Online May’s moment to soften her Brexit stance – Charles Grant for the FT (£) News in Brief Brexit ‘impasse’ makes referendum on May’s proposed deal likely, says Tony Blair – Independent Michael Gove in spat with EU commission over who will ban plastic straws first – The Sun Labour and customs union: Evolution not revolution – BBC News Juncker mocked for saying he’d be a better British PM – Express