Jean-Claude Juncker doubts EU unity during Brexit talks… Jean-Claude Juncker has expressed doubts that EU countries will be able to maintain a united front during Brexit negotiations. Speaking to Germany’s Deutschlandfunk radio, the European Commission president said: “The other EU 27 don’t know it yet, but the Brits know very well how they can tackle this. “They could promise country A this, country B that and country C something else and the endgame is that there is not united European front.” He asked: “Has the time come for when the European Union of the 27 must show unity, cohesion and coherence? “Yes, I say yes, when it comes to Brexit and (US President Donald) Trump… but I have some justified doubts that it will really happen.” He added: “Do the Hungarians and the Poles want exactly the same thing as the Germans and the French? “I have serious doubts.” – Sky News Nigel Farage says Jean-Claude Juncker’s Brexit remarks show Brussels ‘worried’ – BT …as he warns Britain there can be no trade deal negotiations while UK is still in EU European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said the UK cannot negotiate a trade deal with the EU while it remains a member of the bloc. Speaking in an interview to be aired on German radio on Saturday, Mr Juncker added he doubted the remaining 27 member states would be able to maintain unity following Brexit, and that the UK’s departure would cause divisions among the remaining states. – ITV News Britain can’t wait till 2019 to strike its trade deals – Robert Colvile for CapX John Bercow in new Brexit furore over neutrality after admitting he voted Remain The Speaker of the House of Commons has become involved in a fresh row about political bias after he admitted voting to stay in the European Union and said immigration into Britain was a good thing. John Bercow is already facing a vote of no confidence from MPs next week after he angered the Government by vetoing the idea of an address by President Donald Trump to both Houses of Parliament during his state visit later this year. Now it has emerged Mr Bercow told a group of students he voted Remain at last year’s EU referendum, adding he hoped EU rules on parental leave, working time regulations and equality laws would continue after Brexit. – Sunday Telegraph Commonwealth citizens should have UK visas fast-tracked after Brexit, MPs argue Commonwealth citizens should have UK visas fast-tracked to send out an “important message” after Brexit, 45 Conservative MPs tell the Home Secretary today. In a letter to Amber Rudd, the MPs urge the Government to “extend the hand of friendship to our Commonwealth partners” and make the UK more welcoming for Commonwealth citizens. The MPs suggest that visa rules be fast-tracked for visitors from the 52 Commonwealth countries, while signs at the border should be changed to specifically welcome Commonwealth visitors. The recommendations are due to be debated in a Parliament in a fortnight’s time on Feb 26. – Sunday Telegraph Let’s extend the hand of friendship to our Commonwealth friends at our border – Jake Berry MP for ConservativeHome Lords blow to PM over EU workers Theresa May faces defeat in the House of Lords over the right of foreign nationals from other European Union countries to live and work in Britain after Brexit. Those who arrived before the EU referendum last summer would be able to stay under an amendment to the article 50 bill tabled by the Liberal Democrats who are confident that they have the cross-party alliance needed to get it through. The challenge comes as government tensions over Brexit are re-emerging after the concerted effort to get the bill triggering the departure process through the Commons last week. – The Sunday Times (£) Why the Lords won’t block Brexit – James Forsyth for The Spectator’s Coffee House blog Lib Dems in Lords warned not to delay Brexit with “cheap political stunt” by Tory defector Baroness Nicholson has accused peers who try to slow down the Brexit bill as it enters the House of Lords of “disrespect” to the “ordinary people” who voted in the referendum to leave the European Union. Peers are due to start debating the EU Notification of Withdrawal Bill next week [Feb 20 and 21]. Her appeal to Remainers comes as Lord Hope, the convenor of the Crossbench peers, admitted he did not know how they will vote on amendments which threaten to frustrate the start of Brexit. Lib Dems believe they need the support of just 20 crossbench peers to force their amendments through. – Sunday Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/12/lib-dems-lords-warned-not-delay-brexit-cheap-political-stunt/ I’m not a crazed Brexiteer and I won’t go jumping off a cliff, says May: PM refuses to side with EU haters and has even said sorry to Tory Remain rebels Theresa May has distanced herself from hardline Tory enemies of Brussels by saying she is not ‘some crazed Brexiteer’. The Prime Minister made it clear at a private meeting last week that she will not risk economic suicide by ‘jumping off a cliff’ with a hard Brexit – and secretly supports some demands by Remain Tories. Mrs May’s outspoken comments at a Downing Street meeting reflect her frustration at claims by Eurosceptic Tory MPs who boast they have forced her to take a tougher stance. – Mail on Sunday Now get out of Theresa’s way! She can save us from hard Brexit – if the Remainers will just let her – Dan Hodges for the Mail on Sunday Labour voters don’t think their party should try to block Brexit, poll finds Almost half of Labour’s voters do not want the party to try and block Brexit, a new poll for The Independent has found. Though two-thirds of Labour supporters voted to Remain, the new ComRes study found that this does not necessarily translate into wanting to stop Article 50 being triggered. 48 per cent of the party’s voters now say the Opposition shouldn’t try and overturn the referendum result. – The Independent Osborne’s bleak Brexit forecast ‘has undermined the Treasury’ George Osborne’s “project fear” forecasts about the economic risks of leaving the European Union have undermined public confidence in the Treasury and left it ill-equipped to influence Brexit, according to a damning new report from former Whitehall chief Lord Kerslake. The Treasury is traditionally Whitehall’s most powerful department and its civil servants some of the brightest and best. But Kerslake finds that its reputation waned in the wake of the financial crisis – and when it published bleak forecasts of the impact of Brexit in the run-up to the referendum, “the public reaction … was unprecedentedly hostile”. – The Observer Donald Trump’s state visit to UK may be moved from London to Brexit heartland amid security concerns Donald Trump’s controversial state visit to Britain could move from London to the Midlands to allow the US President to address a mass rally and raise money for Armed Forces veterans. Ministers also say the trip could be delayed from June to July to coincide with Mr Trump’s visit to the G20 summit of developed nations in Hamburg. Trump advisers and senior Foreign Office figures have discussed how to save the controversial visit. One idea, which has been suggested to the White House, is for President Trump to address a rally in Birmingham where the audience would pay to enter, with profits going to the Royal British Legion. – Sunday Telegraph Northern Ireland peace at risk because of Brexit, claims Bertie Ahern Theresa May has been accused of putting Northern Ireland’s peace process in jeopardy by the Irish leader who helped to secure the Good Friday agreement. In a sign of growing fears about May’s vision for Brexit, Bertie Ahern took aim at the prime minister over her recent white paper, in an interview with the Observer. Ahern, who served three terms as taoiseach between 1997 and 2008 and helped to deliver power-sharing in Belfast, said that the British government appeared to have resigned itself to the establishment of a border between the north and south once the UK leaves the EU in 2019, with potentially devastating results. – The Observer Britain could quit EU without a Brexit withdrawal agreement and save £150 billion A top legal expert has told Express.co.uk that under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, Britain has the legal right to leave the EU without a withdrawal agreement should they not agree to exit terms. And Prime Minister Theresa May can easily thwart any attempts by EU leaders, including Polish politician Donald Tusk and Luxembourg’s former Prime Minister Jean Claude Juncker, to hold the British tax payer to ransom by simply saying “No!”. Hedge fund founder and lawyer Christopher O’Donnell says subsection 3 of Article 50 clearly provides for two exit scenarios. The first scenario is where Britain and the EU agree a withdrawal agreement. The second scenario is where Britain and the EU cannot agree a withdrawal agreement, and in this second scenario, Britain simply leaves the EU without a withdrawal agreement two years after it issues a leave notice under Article(50)(1). – Sunday Express Dominic Lawson: A reminder for Remainers: ‘the uneducated’ protect us from brilliant idiots it is an absurd and unhistorical notion that intellectuals and their camp-followers are incapable of foolishness when it comes to political and social attitudes. It is well enough known that Marxism — and the slaughters on a global scale that its followers promulgated — was a doctrine imposed on the masses. It was only a lack of proper “consciousness” on the part of the uneducated hordes that prevented them from understanding what was in their own interests, such as the need to destroy the traditional family structure, and to abolish markets because mass prosperity could be guaranteed only by full state control of the means of production, distribution and exchange. – Dominic Lawson for The Sunday Times (£) Chloe Westley: How Brexit will bring Australia and the UK closer together The chance to restore the friendship between our two nations may not be important to every Australian, but it should. It’s what makes us who we are and explains where we are today. It’s what kept me going throughout a campaign that many said would never be successful. And it’s what convinces me that a different future is within reach for both our countries. Leaving the EU was not only the best thing for Britain, but also for Australia and the Commonwealth. It presents the opportunity for Britain to welcome more young Australians live and work in a country that speaks our language and shares our history. It also means we can engage in free and open trade between our nations, and establish closer relations on matters of security and intelligence, keeping us safer in a world that is becoming far less safe and far more unpredictable. – Chloe Westley for ConservativeHome The Independent: We must guard against hate crimes, but Britain is not a racist country We should not fall into the mistake of thinking that all or even most of those who voted to leave the EU were racist. The Independent believed and still believes that remaining in the EU would be in Britain’s best interest, but there were many voters who took a different view, not because they dislike foreigners but because they care about sovereignty or the frustrating, self-serving and self-perpetuating nature of EU rule by bureaucrats. As we also report today, our exclusive ComRes poll finds that a majority of British people think that Donald Trump was wrong to try to impose a travel ban on seven mainly Muslim countries, and that 55 per cent are opposed to a similar policy being followed here. Those who make facile comparisons between support for Brexit in the UK and support for Mr Trump in the US should bear in mind the evidence that British public opinion is not as illiberal as is sometimes imagined. – The Independent editorial Simon Heffer: Remainers should look at the sorry state of Greece before they sing the praises of the EU When the SNP and other Euro-fanatics make the increasingly mindless case for ignoring our referendum result and staying in the EU, don’t they see what a failure the EU is, and what ruin it has inflicted on countries who cannot meet German standards of economic performance? The evidence is before their eyes: the common currency is a disaster. If the EU does implode, it will have only itself to blame. – Simon Heffer for the Sunday Telegraph Jeremy Warner: How much longer will Europeans tolerate this disabling experiment? Like a bad penny, Greece has come bouncing back to haunt the policymakers of Brussels and the International Monetary Fund anew. You can set your watch by Greece’s troubles; every year or two, the country’s debt crisis comes bubbling up afresh. And with good reason – whenever things come to a head, the only solution offered is a package of half-measures that patches the patient up for a while but utterly fails to address the underlying problem of an unsustainable debt burden. It’s what Greece’s former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, has called a game of “extend and pretend”. Lasting solutions invariably prove impossible to agree, ensuring that before long the crisis will return. – Jeremy Warner for the Sunday Telegraph Brexit comment in brief What use is sovereignty when MPs deny their conscience over Brexit? – William Keegan for The Observer Labour can respond to Brexit by leading a popular politics that completes the shift away from Thatcherism – LabourList Brexit news in brief Brexit will be a success and British talent can help, says Karen Bradley – Sunday Express Brexit minister apologises over ‘sexist’ Diane Abbott texts – ITV News