Attorney General issues blistering warning to judges ahead of next week’s Article 50 hearing… In a document outlining ministers’ arguments, Attorney General Jeremy Wright said the High Court had been ‘wrong to relegate, almost to a footnote, the outcome of the referendum’. Mr Wright, the Government’s top legal officer, said the case ‘cannot be resolved in a vacuum, without regard to the outcome of the referendum’. He said that by arguing that Parliamentary sanction was needed to start the process of withdrawing from a treaty, the High Court was ‘divorced from the reality’ of how modern states operate. – Daily Mail The judges and the people: Next week, 11 unaccountable individuals will consider a case that could thwart the will of the majority on Brexit. The Mail makes no apology for revealing their views – and many have links to Europe – Daily Mail When is the Supreme Court judgement on Article 50 and will it derail Brexit? – Daily Telegraph Lord Pannick vs Jeremy Wright: Who are the top lawyers doing battle over Brexit? – Daily Telegraph What next if the government loses its Brexit appeal? – BBC News …as Theresa May is set to dare Parliament to ‘defy the will of the people’ if she loses the court battle Theresa May will challenge Parliament to defy the will of the people by voting down Article 50 if the Government loses an appeal in the Supreme Court, senior sources have said. Ministers have told The Daily Telegraph that the “expectation” amongst Cabinet ministers is that the Government will not succeed in its bid to overturn a High Court ruling which said the Prime Minister must consult Parliament before triggering Article 50, which begins formal Brexit negotiations. In anticipation of a defeat in the Supreme Court, Number 10 is preparing legislation and allies of Mrs May are now “confident” that MPs “would not dare” try and vote down the legislation. – Daily Telegraph Senior Tories slam EU negotiator Guy Verhofstadt for his “foolish” comments on Richmond Park by-election… Guy Verhofstadt, the lead EU negotiator on Brexit, immediately greeted the result this morning on Twitter by congratulating Mrs Olney on her win, adding: “Europe is watching & we are proud #IamEuropean.”… But Eurosceptic Tories were appalled by Mr Verhofstadt’s intervention. Mr Duncan Smith told The Telegraph the official should “mind his own bloody business”… Steve Baker MP, who helped lead the winning Vote Leave campaign before the June 23 referendum, said: “It is foolish for an EU official to try to hijack this result. If every MP simply voted with their nearest counting area, Brexit would have a thumping majority in the Commons. For our EU exit, Richmond is a non-event, whatever pro-EU voices may say.” – Daily Telegraph Sadiq Khan claims Richmond by-election result was ‘rejection of Hard Brexit’ – The Independent Analysis: Was Richmond Park by-election a vote on Brexit? – BBC …as the newly elected Lib Dem MP is dragged off air by her press team after a car crash radio interview Sarah Olney MP had to be dragged off-air by a member of her press team after a grilling by Talk Radio’s Julia Hartley-Brewer. The interview, in which the journalist and presenter asked whether the new MP for Richmond would be calling for a second by-election, as the Lib Dems have done over the Brexit vote, only lasted three minutes before it was terminated by Mrs Olney’s team. She was asked: “When is the second by-election going to be held? We don’t really know what voters were really voting for when they elected you”… After a discrepancy over whether a vote to leave the EU was a vote to leave the single market, Sarah Olney MP went silent and a man, believed to be her PR, came on the line. – Daily Telegraph Listen to the astounding interview in full – talkRADIO Anti-Brexit parties would win 150 fewer seats than pro-Leave parties at a general election, analysis suggests Had the EU referendum been carried out on a constituency level, then the Leave camp would have triumphed in 401 of 632 British constituencies. Unlike in Britain, EU referendum results for Northern Ireland are available on a constituency level and they reveal that, of the 18 areas, seven voted to leave while the remaining 11 chose to remain. This would give the Leave camp a total of 408 constituencies, more than 150 more than Remain’s 242. – Daily Telegraph Chuka Umunna: ‘Remain campaigners must drop calls for new Brexit vote’ Chuka Umunna today urged Remain campaigners to abandon calls for a second referendum or risk being seen as a metropolitan elite “who think they know best”. In an interview with the Evening Standard, the influential Labour backbencher urged fellow pro-EU campaigners to show more respect for the 17 million who voted for Brexit. He also said there are now “no safe Labour seats” after the rise of Ukip, whose new leader Paul Nuttall has vowed to target Labour’s heartlands. – Evening Standard Trade minister moots deal in which UK could remain inside EU customs union… The UK could seek a deal which would allow sections of the economy to remain within the EU’s customs union after Brexit, international trade minister Greg Hands has suggested. Mr Hands said officials would be able to choose the type of products to be covered by agreements. The union operates alongside the EU’s single market and free trade area. – BBC News …as another minister suggests some aid cash could still be spent by the EU post-Brexit if they are doing a good job… The UK could carry on giving millions of pounds in aid cash to European Union agencies after Brexit, a minister suggested last night. Asked about carrying on funding for EU aid bodies, development minister James Wharton told the House of Commons that Britain would look to work with ‘international institutions of whatever type’ if they were doing a good job. Last year the UK sent more than £1.3billion to Brussels so EU agencies could spend it on projects around the world. The amount went up by almost £200million in just one year, despite concerns about waste. – Daily Mail …and Boris Johnson suggests an EU common defence policy would be ‘fine’ once Brexit has happened Boris Johnson has opened a Cabinet split after suggesting that the EU’s plans for a common defence policy are “fine”. The Foreign Secretary said that it is in Britain’s interests to have a “strong EU” after Brexit, adding that the UK will not “block or impede” further integration, including a common security and defence policy. It comes after Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, said that the UK will oppose plans for an EU army because it could “undermine” the role of Nato. – Daily Telegraph Supermarket chain Lidl to create 500 new jobs in Doncaster, despite Brexit Supermarket chain Lidl has announced plans to build a new depot in Doncaster, creating 500 jobs in the process. The warehouse, the brand’s 13th distribution centre in the UK, will cost £70m to build. It is the latest sign that international companies have not been put off investing in the UK following the Brexit vote, despite warnings from pro-EU campaigners that businesses would be wary of increasing their presence in Britain while its position in Europe is uncertain. – Sky News Syed Kamall MEP: Barnier – reasonable, willing to listen, methodical This week, I and other group leaders met with Michel Barnier, the European Commission negotiator on Brexit. He has been touring the capitals of the 27 other EU countries to try and establish a clear common position. Although he is sometimes painted by some sections of the media as a French pantomime villain, I have always found him to be a reasonable person who, while committed to the European project of political integration, is methodical and willing to listen. Of course, we will not always agree, but we could do a lot worse for negotiators across the table. – Syed Kamall MEP on ConservativeHome Charles Moore: The British constitution is clear. If the Supreme Court rules against Article 50, they are breaking it Next week, the Supreme Court will hear the Government’s appeal over Article 50. At the beginning of last month, it lost in the Divisional Court. The judges there decided that, despite the EU referendum result, the Government did not have the right to trigger Britain’s departure from the EU: it needed parliamentary legislation first. Since then, there has been much anger on both sides. Brexiteers have assailed the judges for their bias. Remainers have said how disgraceful it is to attack the judges. – Charles Moore in the Daily Telegraph (£) Allister Heath: Why Brexit Britain is in love with free trade It has become fashionable in some quarters to argue that the Brexit vote was a protectionist cry for help, dramatic proof that our once open society is turning against globalisation. Nothing could be any further from the truth: a new set of focus groups confirms that Leave as well as Remain voters remain overwhelmingly committed to free trade. There is deep concern about the levels of immigration and the lack of control; but the public explicitly makes a fundamental distinction between the free movement of goods and services and the free movement of people. – Allister Heath in the Daily Telegraph (£) John Redwood MP: The EU has been bad for the economy and bad for Britain European Union membership has done considerable damage to the UK economy and to the reputations of the many economists who have slavishly recommended its economic ways. It has directly caused a major recession in the early 1990s in the UK, thanks to its European Exchange Rate Mechanism scheme. It aided and abetted the banking crash and Great Recession of the last decade by adding the imperfections of the Euro to the poor banking regulation which the ECB shared in common with the US and UK authorities. – John Redwood MP for the Politeia blog David Green: The EU’s single market is a rip-off. Britain should keep as far away from it as possible Has the single market been good for productivity? No! Has it been good for jobs? No! Has it been beneficial for our goods exports to the EU? No! Has it been good for workplace regulation? No! Has it been advantageous for our services sector? No! Has it been good for financial services? No, although in this case there is a qualification, namely that ‘passporting’ is useful for parts of the sector. Strictly speaking, however, the granting of the right for banks to trade is not necessarily linked to single market membership and a number of banks from non-member nations have reciprocal rights to sell their products within the EU. In any event, banks can easily set up subsidiaries within the eurozone. – David Green for the Daily Telegraph (£) James Forsyth: As Italy hits the polls it may well cripple the EU and serve a boost to Brexit If the Italians vote no on Sunday, that will have consequences for Brexit. London is, ironically, the Eurozone’s financial and banking capital. If the Eurozone is under pressure, then even the EU would think twice about erecting barriers between it and its financial and banking capital. This might lead to a better deal for Britain’s financial services than people are expecting. But if the British Government is to take advantage of this opportunity, then it has to know what it wants out of the Brexit talks. At the moment, though, the Government is still negotiating with itself. – James Forsyth in The Sun Brexit comment in brief After Richmond Park, here are 10 seats Remainers may hope to take from Tory Brexiteers – Asa Bennett for the Daily Telegraph Brexit. Trump. Not a revolt against the elites, but an upsurge of patriotism – George Maggs for ConservativeHome Davis brings Brexit back to reality – Benjamin Fox for EU Observer Why the EU vote will eventually dampen Britain’s prospects – Andrew Sentance for the Daily Telegraph ‘Brexiteers need to understand that we’re the insurgents now’ – Nicky Morgan in The Times (£) The Richmond by-election is not a mandate to reverse Brexit – Ben Kelly for Conservatives for Liberty Brexit news in brief Full text of Boris Johnson’s speech entitled Beyond Brexit: a Global Britain – Gov.uk David Davis makes first ministerial trip to Spain – Gov.uk Christine Lagarde: We Are Still Looking at a Hard Brexit – Bloomberg(video) EU will not give UK concessions over free movement of people, says Ireland’s Enda Kenny – RTE Andrew Neil slams government’s plan to keep funding EU even after Brexit – Daily Express Lord Wallace claims Holyrood has ‘clear role’ in Brexit process – Press and Journal Housing market outside of London ‘remarkably unaffected’ by Brexit vote – Daily Telegraph Two-thirds of UK businesses think EU exit will not have negative impact – Daily Express Liam Fox says Welsh business needs a Euro 2016 moment so it can thrive in a post-Brexit future – Wales Online