Brexit will be the elephant in the room at Theresa May’s first European Council summit… This Thursday and Friday will be a baptism of fire for Theresa May. The EU’s 28 heads of state and government will tackle a packed agenda, focussing on immigration and security on Thursday and trade on Friday. The British prime minister has been assigned a short speaking slot during dessert at Thursday’s dinner. – EurActiv Brexit on the Brussels backburner as EU juggles its many fires – Bloomberg …at which she will tell her counterparts there will be no second referendum… The Prime Minister will on Thursday tell leaders over dinner that she is “absolutely clear” that Britain will leave the European Union as she seeks to dispel suggestions in “certain quarters” that the UK could stay in. She will also say that she wants both a “strong Britain” and a “strong European Union” after Brexit, and stress that it is in everyone’s interests that the process is “smooth and orderly”. – Daily Telegraph …after admitting yesterday that negotiations could go on for more than two years EU rules set a two-year deadline on exit negotiations after Article 50 is started but the Prime Minister warned that the ‘lengthy’ process of talks could mean the deadline of April 2019 could be missed… She told MPs: ‘Parliament will have its say but these will be lengthy negotiations over the course of those two years or more’. – Daily Mail Philip Hammond accuses Liam Fox and pro-Brexit MPs of “undermining” Theresa May’s hand in EU talks Philip Hammond has accused Cabinet ministers pushing for a hard Brexit of “undermining” Theresa May’s negotiating hand. The Chancellor exploded a spiralling top table bust into the open after days of briefing against him by other senior Tories. – The Sun Fury as a group of peers call for a vote in the House of Lords on Theresa may’s Brexit strategy A group of peers has sparked outrage by demanding that the House of Lords is given a veto over Theresa May’s Brexit strategy.The Lords EU committee said the decision was too important to be left to ministers. Critics said demands for a vote were cover for attempts to overturn the referendum result. Mrs May has said she will activate Article 50 – the two-year process for leaving – by the end of March next year. In their report today, the peers say ‘too much is at stake’ for the negotiations to be left to ministers. – Daily Mail > Hugh Bennett on BrexitCentral: The House of Lords again flexes its muscles on Brexit – but peers should be careful about trying to frustrate the will of the people UK employment rate at record high despite vote to leave European Union Britain’s buoyant jobs market brushed off the Brexit vote in August to maintain its record employment rate of 74.5%, the same as the previous quarter, to take the total number of people with a job to just below 32 million. – The Guardian Handelsbanken to expand UK operations despite Brexit Sweden’s Handelsbanken plans to press ahead with its expansion in Britain despite the country’s vote to leave the European Union, newly appointed Chief Executive Anders Bouvin said on Wednesday… He has identified the Netherlands and Britain as areas with growth potential, despite Britain’s Brexit vote in June. – Reuters Eurotunnel says business ‘has never been stronger’ despite Brexit vote – Daily Mail Homes in the east and south drive house price increases despite Brexit – The Sun Iceland says it would welcome the UK into the European Free Trade Association post-Brexit Icelandic Foreign Minister Lilja Alfredsdottir said: “The EFTA countries might make an agreement with the UK. We are chairing the EFTA right now and I put it as a priority to analyse the possibilities that EFTA had on this front.” Speaking at the London School of Economics on Wednesday, the minister noted that the UK was Iceland’s largest trading partner. “Eleven percent of our exports and imports go to this market.” – International Business Times Brexit timetable must be made public by January, says Labour Labour has insisted Brexit timetable plans must be made public by the end of January. Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer also repeated calls for the House of Commons to be guaranteed a vote on the proposed terms for exiting the EU. Sir Keir set out the demands in a letter to Brexit Secretary David Davis. The issue will be raised in the Commons on Thursday during questions on withdrawing from the EU. – BT.com Keir Starmer, leading for Labour on Brexit. A first-class lawyer – but can he be a first-class politician? – ConservativeHome European Parliament gets ready to brainstorm Brexit Not content to stay on the sidelines during the U.K.’s exit negotiations with the EU, the European Parliament thinks it has found a way to shoehorn itself into the fight with one of its favorite pastimes: writing reports. Parliament President Martin Schulz has asked key MEPs to spend the next several months working on “analytical material” and “fact-finding work” to get ready behind the scenes for Brexit. – Politico Allister Heath: Why it’s time for a new campaign for Brexit If the Government doesn’t launch a new campaign for Brexit, somebody else will have to. They will need to set up a new campaign vehicle, hire some of the operatives who masterminded the Leave vote and go back to their donors for funding. This cannot wait until after Christmas. The Battle for Brexit must begin – again – now. – Allister Heath in the Daily Telegraph Charles Moore: Vote Leave won the referendum, but it’s losing the government Two organisations — Change Britain and the website Brexit Central — have spun out of Vote Leave, but neither seems well placed to do the job now required. I have written before that something — working title, The 17.4 Million Committee — needs to be created to campaign every day. It would challenge every false claim made about what happens next and produce its own data, stories and policy suggestions to keep pushing the argument forward. It needs to hurry. – Charles Moore in The Spectator Daniel Korski: Why we lost the Brexit vote (in 8,000 words) As tempting as it might be to attribute the U.K.’s decision to “Leave” to just one cause — frustration with immigration, the reluctance of EU leaders to offer a better deal, broad disaffection with globalization and the post-crash recovery — the truth is far more complex. Real life cannot be compressed into a zip file. – Daniel Korski on Politico Ben Kelly: The European Arrest Warrant is making Britain complicit in political persecution Brexit may mean Brexit (whatever that eventually means), but does it entail abolishing the European Arrest warrant? Indeed it should, but as our Prime Minister is a keen advocate of the EAW, it currently seems rather unlikely. The EAW is based on the cursory assumption that all criminal justice systems in the EU are equal and uphold similar levels of equity between the citizen and the state… The evidence points to the contrary. – Ben Kelly in the Daily Telegraph Tony – not Hilary – Benn should be MPs’ guide to Brexit The most cocooned of Westminster insiders may not have noticed, but respect for politicians is already at rock-bottom – with good reason. By setting themselves up in opposition to the Brexit majority, MPs risk doing serious damage to public faith in representative democracy. If that happens, what then? Fans of Hilary Benn might be better advised to heed the words of his late father: “The Parliamentary democracy we have developed and established in Britain is based, not upon the sovereignty of Parliament, but upon the sovereignty of the People”. – Douglas Carswell MP on his eponymously named blog Kwasi Kwarteng MP: Brexit will be worth it There is no doubt that some transitional costs may be incurred in moving from one tariff regime, represented by the customs union, to another. We can be confident, however, that an equilibrium will be reached in a relatively short time. Britain will then be in an even stronger position to trade successfully with the rest of the world. – Kwasi Kwarteng MP in Prospect Brexit comment in brief Cutting the apron strings: How Brexit will force British banks to think on their feet – Roger Studer in City A.M. Europe summit is golden opportunity to show UK is open and tolerant – Anna Soubry MP in The Times (£) Brexit news in brief Martin Schulz makes a plea to back EU-Canada trade deal – EurActiv Rock of splurges as Spanish shoppers relish pound slump – The Press and Journal And finally… European nations at odds over whether Brexit is masculine or feminine European countries can’t agree on whether Brexit should be masculine or feminine, it has emerged, as language police on the continent seek to defend their pronoun choice. In one of the most unexpected arguments over the UK’s decision to leave the European Union France, Germany, Spain and Italy are locked in a battle over how Brexit should be pronounced. And while the French, Germans and Spanish have all decided that the nation’s decision to opt out of the 28 member-state group should be masculine, the Italians have backed the feminine version. – Daily Telegraph