Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Theresa May welcomes Brexit transition deal as trade talks now loom… Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed the approval by European Union leaders on Friday of a transition period to help business adapt after Brexit, telling the bloc to ride the “new dynamic” in upcoming trade talks. Endorsing their negotiating stance for trade talks due to start next month, the 27 other EU leaders at a Brussels summit confirmed a political, if not yet legal, commitment to let Britain effectively stay in the bloc – without a vote – until the end of 2020, or 21 months after formal Brexit next March. – Reuters European Union leaders give go-ahead for Brexit trade talks to begin – City A.M. PM hails ‘spirit of co-operation’ after Brexit breakthrough – News Letter EU leaders formally back Brexit transition deal – Telegraph (£) Transition deal offers no relief to City of London – FT (£) So can Theresa May now survive the Brexit course? – John Pienaar for BBC News Theresa May has her Brexit bridge, but the EU wants to dictate what lies at the end – Asa Bennett for the Telegraph (£) > WATCH on BrexitCentral’s YouTube: Donald Tusk’s remarks at the conclusion of the European Council meeting …while the EU demands Britain must resolve the Irish border issue within weeks… Britain must prove to the EU that it can avoid a hard Irish border after Brexit in “a matter of weeks” if it is to meet a June deadline set by Donald Tusk, the European Council president. British and European Commission negotiators will meet next week for talks over Ireland and Brexit. For the first time, they will be joined in the meeting rooms of Commission headquarters by Irish officials, who have liaised closely with the EU team during talks. EU leaders at a Brussels summit formally backed agreement on the Brexit transition period, paving the way for talks over a free trade deal, on Friday. – Telegraph (£) > David Campbell Bannerman MEP on BrexitCentral today: Practical and technical solutions can resolve the questions about the Irish border …and Europeans promise more steps against Russia over UK spy attack European Union member states agreed at a summit on Friday to take additional punitive measures against Russia for a nerve agent attack in Britain, as Moscow accused the bloc of joining a London-driven hate campaign against it. Moscow has denied that it is behind the attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, the first known offensive use of a nerve toxin in Europe since World War Two. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel said evidence of Russian culpability presented by British Prime Minister Theresa May was “very solidly based” and promised new measures after EU leaders agreed late on Thursday to recall their ambassador to Moscow. – Reuters Skripal attack: May rallies 20 European nations top expel Putin’s diplomats – Times (£) Be careful Prime Minister, EU co-operation on Russia will not extend to Brexit – The Sun editorial How Theresa May finally persuaded the EU to unite against Russia – Telegraph (£) Huge trade between Britain and Ireland should be protected to ensure Irish jobs, pleads Taoiseach The UK should stay as close as possible to the EU after Brexit, Irish premier Leo Varadkar has said. The “enormous” trade between Britain and Ireland should be protected to ensure Irish jobs, the premier added. But he said it was up to the UK to propose a solution on the vexed Irish border question if it rejected that put forward by European leaders. On Friday morning leaders of the 27 EU member states meeting in Brussels adopted guidelines for future EU-UK relations after the separation in a year’s time. – Belfast Telegraph Jeremy Corbyn faces backlash as he sacks Owen Smith over call for second referendum Jeremy Corbyn faced a backlash after sacking Owen Smith from his shadow cabinet over Brexit. Mr Smith was replaced as shadow Northern Ireland secretary after calling for a second European Union referendum. Mr Smith said he had been sacked for his views on the “damage” Brexit will do to the UK’s economy and the Good Friday Agreement. In an apparent message to Mr Corbyn he added: “Those views are shared by Labour members and supporters and I will continue to speak up for them, and in the interest of our country.” – Belfast Telegraph Jeremy Corbyn facing rows over Brexit and anti-Semitism – BT Jeremy Corbyn is about to find out just how much goodwill he has with Remainers – Stephen Bush by the New Statesman Diane Abbott called for a second referendum four months ago but was not sacked – Guido Fawkes Diane Abbott’s Brexit hypocrisy – Spectator New poll shows overwhelming majority want government to get on with Brexit A new poll by BMG for Change Britain has found an overwhelming majority are in favour of getting on with Brexit. 57% agree that “the government should get on with implementing the result of the referendum to take Britain out of the EU and in doing so take back control of our borders, laws, money and trade”. Just 22% disagree. Indeed, the poll finds those who agreed with getting on with Brexit outweighed those who disagreed across all ages, classes, regions and political parties – Guido Fawkes Lords want rethink on plan to print UK passport abroad National pride should force a government rethink over its decision to choose a Franco-Dutch firm to make post-Brexit blue UK passports, peers have heard. Security concerns were also raised in the Lords after it emerged that Gemalto, headquartered in Amsterdam and listed on the French and Dutch stock exchanges, is the frontrunner for the new contract. The Government claims the new contract will save £120 million during the lifetime of the 11-and-a-half year contract. British-based De La Rue, which employs about 100 people in Gateshead making passports, is the current provider. – Herald Scotland Making dark blue British passports in France will save £120m – i News Making passports British shouldn’t mean making them in Britain – Andrew McKie for CapX Global passports are a fitting symbol for Global Britain – Juliet Samuels for the Telegraph (£) Daily Mail: Sign our petition to have the new blue passports made in Britain: Fury in the House of Lords after Amber Rudd is accused of betraying Brexit by handing the contract to the French – Daily Mail ‘If he goes, I go!’ – Jean-Claude Juncker threatens to quit in row over ‘monster’ Eurocrat promotion Jean Claude-Juncker, the president of the European Commission, has threatened to resign if his most senior adviser is forced out of a new job at the helm of the EU civil service. Martin Selmayr, a 47-year-old German lawyer renowned for his shrewd tactics and virulent anti-Brexit stance, was suddenly promoted to the position of secretary general at the Commission in February. The appointment sparked a furore in Brussels, with MEPs complaining that the appointment was orchestrated in secret, which made the EU look like an “old boys’ club.” – Telegraph (£) Trump accused of ‘putting gun to EU’s head’ as trade fears mount Stock markets dived again on Friday as Donald Trump faced a barrage of criticism for launching a $60bn (£42bn) package of tariffs on Chinese goods, sparking fears of a global trade war. In a day of condemnations, EU leaders meeting in Brussels accused Mr Trump of “putting a gun” to Europe’s head, while the director general of the WTO in Geneva warned that the US administration’s move had “jeopardised” a still-fragile global recovery. On Wall Street, the benchmark Dow Jones index ended down 1.8pc at 23,533.2, which puts it back in correction territory some 11pc below the record high it reached in January. – Telegraph Germany pleads for calm as EU defies Trump trade threats – Times (£) Former Vote Leave Campaign Director Dominic Cummings: A comprehensive rebuttal of claims there was a “global conspiracy” behind the Brexit vote Carole Cadwalladr (CC) and Channel 4 (C4) have sent me and others involved in Vote Leave (VL) a list of questions concerning the referendum and allegations from Wylie and other ‘whistleblowers’. CC’s letter is attached below verbatim with only some names and libellous details about others deleted. This is part of a long-running attempt by the Observer to claim that 1) VL was involved with Cambridge Analytica (CA) in a global conspiracy involving a nine-month long fight for the designation as the official campaign, covered intensely by the media, that was ‘really’ the most elaborate cover story since the D-Day deception operation, and 2) VL acted illegally in making donations to BeLeave (BL) and other campaign groups. – Dominic Cummings for Dominic Cummings’ blog Fraser Nelson: The UK is doing just fine, thanks For a country supposedly crawling out of the ruins of the Brexit vote, the U.K. has been having a strikingly good year so far. The number of people working stands at a record high, and income inequality is approaching a 30-year low, according to the Office for National Statistics. New orders for manufacturers are at their highest level in a generation, and employers in general are struggling to find enough staff to cope with demand. Even the (relatively new) national happiness index stands at a peak. When Britain voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, a very different future was forecast. Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, declared that Britain had just “collapsed: politically, monetarily, constitutionally and economically.” But the plague of locusts has yet to show up—which is odd, given how many experts predicted that a victory for Brexit would bring catastrophe. – Fraser Nelson for the Wall Street Journal James Forsyth: To solve her Brexit conundrum, the PM must be able to walk away if she has to On Thursday, it will be exactly one year until this country formally leaves the European Union. Not much will actually change in a year’s time, though. If all goes to plan, a transition period — the terms of which were agreed this week — will run until the end of 2020. This transition will leave Britain as, effectively, a non-voting member of the EU. It is not a perfect arrangement. But it is a necessary step to ensure that Britain leaves in an orderly fashion. One of the reasons this transition is necessary is that Britain is not yet ready to leave. – The Sun Tom Goodenough: Brexit’s progress is defying the doom-mongers’ predictions For all the predictions that talks would break down, things are actually on the whole progressing well. The tone of the Brexit guidelines is positive and in today’s text we see the plans for a possible trade deal spelled out clearly. This isn’t an idle promise: the European Council again ‘confirms its readiness to initiate work towards a balanced, ambitious and wide-ranging free trade agreement’ in the document. Away from Brexit, the EU’s decision to recall its ambassador from Moscow also shows the depth of solidarity that continues between other EU countries and the UK. – Tom Goodenough for The Spectator Alex Hickman: What would a “Green Brexit” actually look like? Leaving the EU means leaving the Common Agriculture and Fisheries Policies, which gives the UK a once-in-a-generation opportunity to re-design our approach to food production, environmental protection and the rural economy. For decades the CAP has sponsored a bureaucratic approach to food production that has paid out subsidy to farmers on the basis of land ownership, regardless of a farmer’s innovation and his or her environmental stewardship. Meanwhile, the CFP has reduced UK fish stocks and hollowed-out our coastal communities. DEFRA Secretary of State Michael Gove is proposing to replace the CAP with a regime that will award farmers and land managers public money for delivering ‘public goods’. He has also pledged to regain control over UK waters and fish stocks, though this won’t be possible until the transition period ends in December 2020. – Alex Hickman for Reaction Telegraph: UK must look to its world role post-Brexit Yesterday was a significant day for Europe. While Britain and the EU formally agreed a Brexit transition deal, a hostage crisis unfolded in France. Terrorism is one of the challenges facing the continent; the transition deal shows what Europeans can accomplish when they work together. Because Brexit does not signal a rejection of Britain’s European history or geography, as if that were possible, but a desire to reset relations – and once we have left the EU, we seek a constructive partnership. Its necessity has been clarified by alarming developments in conflict and trade. Three weeks ago, in Salisbury, a nerve agent was used in Europe for the first time since the Second World War. The EU stands “in unqualified solidarity” with the UK in its condemnation of Russia, and Theresa May’s diplomacy deserves credit. Her level-headed leadership has been apposite, and events have endorsed her argument that Brexit should result in more security co-operation, not less. – Telegraph editorial Brexit in brief Remainers need to come clean: a ‘deal or remain’ referendum is impossible – Chris Ward for Huffington Post The EU’s lofty budget ambitions – Robert Bates for Comment Central Stop this shameful capitulation to the EU on fisheries – Peter Lyon for The Commentator The unstable foundations of the Remain side – Get Britain Out editorial UK tourism to hit record number of visitors in 2018 – despite Brexit warnings – Express Britain to use Royal Navy’s gunboats to protect British fish after Brexit – Express Danish fishermen fear for their post-Brexit futures – Channel Four News Brexit secretary David Davis has been flying to Brussels and other European cities using RAF aircraft – City A.M. Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald on post-Brexit border – BBC News Inside the secret plot to reverse Brexit – Bloomberg