Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Brussels furious as UK ‘admits next round of Brexit talks will only be talks about talks’ Negotiations between Britain and the EU next week will be nothing more than “talks about talks” and barely mention the Brexit Bill, much to the fury of Brussels, The Telegraph can reveal. Senior Whitehall officials have conceded that the two days listed for next week were “not a proper round” of talks but a “stock-taking exercise”. EU sources greeted the idea of David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, and Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, meeting in Brussels on November 9 and 10 for “non-talk talks” with anger and astonishment. Negotiations so far have been characterised by at least three days of painstaking talks between the British and EU teams. – Telegraph (£) British trade with China booms as rest of EU lags behind Britain has soared to become China’s second largest trading partner within Europe and is now “well ahead of the curve” compared to the rest of the EU, new figures show today. A new report shows the UK did a massive £55 billion of trade with the eastern giant last year, rocketing up to become Beijing’s eight biggest economic partner in the world. Only the EU’s manufacturing powerhouse Germany did more trade with the country in 2016 than Britain according to data published by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).Experts said the new figures provide encouraging signs for Britain as it prepares to leave the EU and forge a new future for itself as a great global trading nation. – Express FTSE 100 closes at a record high Despite a decidedly slow day of trading, the FTSE 100 closed at a record high today, finishing at 7,560.35 points. The index was pushed higher by NMC Health, which rose 4.2 per cent, and the Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company, which rose three per cent. However, the index itself only mustered a 0.07 per cent rise.Meanwhile, after a slow start to the day, the pound was up against both the dollar and the euro in late afternoon trading, pushed higher by encouraging figures for the services sector. Having increased losses first thing this morning after currency traders were disappointed by a lack of guidance from the Bank of England after yesterday’s interest rate hike, sterling climbed 0.6 per cent against the euro to €1.1268 this afternoon. – City A.M. FTSE 100 inches up to fresh record close – Telegraph FTSE 100 reaches record high as UK services sector rebounds – Guardian Robert Peston admits Brexit voters ‘on the right side of History’ Self-confessed metropolitan elitist Robert Peston says he has become sympathetic to the will of the British people and the cause of Brexit. Peston’s new book WTF is not exactly an ode to the cause of Leavers, but the ITV pol ed does admit: “Please don’t throw me out of the family, I now fear that those that did were on the right side of an important argument and the right side of history.” – Guido Fawkes ‘The right thing to do’ Peston says Brexit voters were ‘on the right side of history’ – Express >Watch On BrexitCentral’s Youtube Channel: Robert Peston says Brexit was the right thing to do Gisela Stuart: Leave voters can’t be dismissed as “old, racist and stupid” Can an the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the European Union simply be dismissed as old and racist? And now, according to my former colleague the Labour MP Barry Sheerman, stupid? I’m sure I was not the only one who considered his claim that “better educated people voted Remain” offensive. Putting aside the fact that many young people voted Leave, isn’t it possible that the “old” had a valuable historic perspective which allowed them to draw a distinction between trade and co-operation on the one hand and political integration on the other? – Gisela Stuart for the New Statesman Jack Tagholm-Child: A ‘No Deal’ can come in different shapes and sizes All too often a No Deal arrangement is interpreted as one where talks have completely broken down and no agreements on any other matter relating to trade or governmental co-operation are made. They suggest a bitter dispute, whereby both sides give up completely on co-operating altogether. This is, however, unlikely. In No Deal’s most severe form – in which the UK leaves the EU with no formal trade deal in place – we would still fall back onto the World Trade Organisation’s ‘Most Favoured Nation’ (MFN) rules. This would mean facing an average tariff on exports to the EU of just 5.3 per cent, while gaining all the freedoms of leaving the European Union. – Jack Tagholm-Child for CommentCentral Richard Tol: How will Brexit Britain cut emissions – and keep the lights on? Many remarkable things happened immediately after the Brexit referendum. One is often overlooked: The House of Commons adopted the Fifth Carbon Budget, reaffirming the targets of the Climate Change Act 2008. More than half of the greenhouse gas emission reduction in the UK is due to policies and measures that originate in Brussels rather than in London. In 2014, one quarter of UK emission reductions were achieved by paying companies in Eastern Europe to reduce theirs instead.- Richard Tol for The Spectator Iain Dale: The good news about Brexit, buried in a Bank of England report The Bank of England appears to be acting as the provisional wing of the Remain campaign. Their latest intervention predicts a loss of 75,000 jobs in financial services if there is no Brexit deal. It’s being so cheerful as keeps ‘em going. Still, at least it hasn’t gone as far as the deluded head of the London Stock Exchange, Xavier Rolet, who reckons 200,000 jobs would go. Fact: JP Morgan has announced that, instead of the 4,000 jobs it threatened to move to Paris, fewer than a thousand will now be created there. Same with UPS. Not 1,000. 250. And these aren’t jobs that will necessarily move. They’re creating new offices with new positions. – Iain Dale for ConservativeHome Brexit comment in brief With friends like Mark Carney, who needs enemies? – John Longworth for CapX How the Westminster sexual harassment scandal could stop Brexit – Sean O’Grady for the Independent There will be a Brexit deal but Hammond needs to prepare for the worst. – Ashley Fox MEP for ConservativeHome How Putin could yet save Britain from Brexit Mark Galeotti for the Guardian Brexit news in brief Turkish official: ‘Turkey remains anchored to Europe’ – Politico Deutsche Bank-Weetabix court case shows how Brexit affects breakfast – Independent 45% of foreign firms don’t think Brexit will have ‘negative’ impact – PA Germany’s EU bill to soar as Merkel counts cost of life without UK – Express