Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Theresa May praises ‘solidarity’ from EU and US on Russia Theresa May covered a fair bit of ground in her statement to the Commons on last week’s European Council meeting. She talked about how EU leaders were supporting Britain in the stand-off with Russia following the Salisbury attack, on the agreement that leaders reached on the next stage of Brexit negotiations and on steel tariffs. On Russia, the Prime Minister told the House that ‘I have found great solidarity from our friends and partners in the EU, North America, Nato and beyond over the past three weeks as we have confronted the aftermath of the Salisbury incident’. She revealed that 18 countries, including 15 EU member states, had expelled more than 100 Russian intelligence officers from their countries. – Spectator The British-led expulsion of Russian diplomats is a hugely powerful action against Putin – The Sun The UK-EU response to Russian aggression is good news for our post-Brexit teamwork – Telegraph editorial (£) Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg goes head-to-head with Remainer Chris Patten today in separate “one year to go” speeches on Brexit Mr Rees-Mogg, who chairs the Conservative pro-Brexit European Research Group, will say reneging on the referendum result would be a national humiliation worse than the Suez crisis. He will liken opponents of Brexit to Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda, who spent 29 years in the jungle because he did not believe the war was over. The Tory MP will say: “With one year to go before the technical date of departure, this is the challenge to the decreasing number of remainders who model themselves on Mr Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who finally surrendered in 1974 having previously refused to believe that the Second World War had ended.” – Express Former Cabinet minister Chris Patten, meanwhile, will claim the closest hard-Brexiteers have come to a free trade deal is “the check-out at Waitrose” and warn there is not even a “half-baked” solution to the Irish border problem on the table. Lord Patten of Barnes, who was a European Commissioner, in a rival speech will say Brexiteers have abandoned the idea of “no deal is better than a bad deal” in favour of “any deal will do”. He will say the government has failed to come up with credible plans for the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. – BT The closest pro-Brexit ministers have come to a trade deal is the checkout at Waitrose – Lord Patten for The Times (£) > Today on BrexitCentral: Richard Tice: Start measuring the countdown to freedom and opportunity in days, not years Austin Mitchell: The Remoaners would have us return to the EU humiliated and on the periphery Remain campaign used exactly the same spending tactics as Vote Leave, just to an even greater degree… There is a long list of reasons why Carole Cadwalladr’s claims that Vote Leave “cheated” on their spending during the referendum are wrong. First and foremost, the Remain campaign did exactly the same thing that Cadwalladr is accusing Vote Leave of, only far, far worse. Vote Leave gifted BeLeave £625,000. Yet in the month before the vote the Remainers set up FIVE new campaigns and funnelled a MILLION pounds into them so they could stay under the spending limit. – Guido Fawkes …as Theresa May says Brits are sick of ‘tired old arguments’ when it comes to Brexit referendum row Theresa May last night blasted the Brexit referendum cheating row saying Brits are sick of the “tired old arguments” used to “refight” the battle. And the Prime Minister refused to apologise over claims her close aide Stephen Parkinson had “outed” his former lover after he accused Vote Leave of overspending in their 2016 victory. Mrs May’s full throttled support of her longest serving adviser came as the whistleblower who said the rules had been broken admitted he had no hard evidence to support his incendiary claims. Mr Parkinson has been accused by his ex-boyfriend Shahmir Sanni of secretly coordinated different anti-EU groups to help swerve strict campaigning laws – claims that he furiously denies. – The Sun MPs to debate Vote Leave Brexit spending allegations – BBC News > Jonathan Isaby on BrexitCentral yesterday: What you need to know about Darren Grimes > On BrexitCentral’s YouTube: Brexit ‘whistleblower’ exposed on Daily Politics Ministers threaten to cripple EU Galileo satellite’s global coverage if EU locks UK out of it Britain will cripple the EU Galileo satellite’s global coverage if the EU presses ahead with a threat to lock Britain out of it. A Brussels plan to strip Britain of access to the joint space system after Brexit has infuriated Downing Street. Ministers will hit back with a pledge to turn off key infrastructure for it on the Falklands, Ascension Island and Diego Garcia. The Galileo satellite – relied on by businesses as well as the military – uses dishes and boosters on Britain’s overseas territories to give it global vision. – The Sun Space, the new Brexit frontier: EU is threatening to kick Britain out of their multi-billion pound Galileo satellite project – Daily Mail Tony Blair descends on Parliament to demand MPs ‘thwart’ the Tory Brexit plan Tony Blair descended on Parliament tonight for a speech demanding MPs “thwart” Theresa May’s Hard Brexit plans. The former Prime Minister said Parliament “has a duty to foil” the government strategy that will plunge Britain off a “cliff” in 2020. And he stepped up calls for a second EU referendum. Mr Blair also launched a stinging attack on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership over Brexit and accused Labour of pretending it can secure a better exit deal than the Tories. The former prime minister said the party’s leadership was committed to Britain’s exit from the European Union “whether for reasons of opportunism or covert opposition” to the bloc. – Mirror Tony Blair attacks Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit strategy – Herald Remainers up the pressure as Blair calls for second referendum and Starmer says MPs should be able to stop Brexit – Daily Mail Full text of Blair’s speech – Tony Blair Institute Labour to push for legal block on a hard Irish border… Labour has pledged to try and push through changes to Brexit legislation that would make a return to a hard border in Northern Ireland impossible. The party’s shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer has insisted such a legal commitment is needed to prevent any kind of “checks, controls or physical infrastructure” at the border. In a speech in Birmingham as the countdown to Brexit approaches the one-year mark, Sir Keir said an amendment to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill was needed because: “This would put in place a legal commitment preventing a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.” – Belfast Telegraph …as poll find voters in Great Britain think leaving the EU ‘more important than the union with Northern Ireland’ Leaving the European Union is more important than maintaining the union with Northern Ireland for voters in Great Britain, a poll has suggested. Of those who took part, 36% viewed leaving the European Union as their top priority, while 29% said it’s that NI remains part of the United Kingdom. Around 22% said neither issue was important, while the remainder said they did not know which one to prioritise higher. The YouGov survey, commissioned by radio station LBC, was conducted online between the 21st and 22nd of March, and sampled 1,630 adults living in Great Britain. – ITV News Anger grows over aide promoted by Juncker European officials have told MEPs to get out of the “Brussels bubble” as a row over Jean-Claude Juncker’s former aide deepened before a parliamentary hearing today. Martin Selmayr was chief of staff to Mr Juncker, the European Commission president, before he was suddenly appointed secretary-general of the commission last month. MEPs have claimed that there were irregularities over the appointment and sent a list of 134 questions for officials to answer. The commission responded yesterday with 80 answers which it says showed the appointment was “in full compliance with all legal rules” and urged MEPs to move on. – The Times (£) Norman Tebbit: With one year to go until Brexit, the appetite for nitpicking obstructionism amongst Remainer peers is proving insatiable What a relief it will be to arrive at ‘Brexit day’ in just over twelve months’ time. Not only will this Kingdom have regained its independence but it will also be free of the nitpicking obstructionism practiced day after day by Liberal Democrat peers in the House of Lords. For 40 years these peers supinely allowed our masters in Brussels – whom we do not elect and cannot dismiss – to legislate without our consent and to exert their power in our land. Now, as we take back those powers and hand them to ministers answerable to the British people, the anti-Brexit peers froth with indignation that not every bit of that process has to be conducted in each House of Parliament. – Lord Tebbit for the Telegraph (£) John Longworth: Remainers are undermining Brexit talks and damaging Britain We have agreed to delay Brexit by nearly two years and become a vassal state of the EU for at least that interregnum. For the privilege of having no say in EU affairs but being a rule taker, the UK taxpayer will hand over to the EU the equivalent of our Second World War debt. You could not make it up! During this period our fishing grounds will continue to be plundered and quotas stitched up in favour of the Continent and the prime minister will have signed up to a “backstop” deal on Northern Ireland, which is the antithesis of her categoric statement that no British prime minister would countenance the annexation of British territory by a foreign power. – John Longworth for The Times (£) Juliet Samuel: Europe’s costly financial shake-up may yet benefit a post-Brexit UK Oops. That wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s been two weeks since a major provision of the sprawling new EU regulation called Mifid II came into effect and its immediate impact… hasn’t exactly been as intended. In fact, it might well have helped achieve exactly the opposite of what it was meant to do. The provision in question is a limit on the amount of equity trading that can happen in so-called “dark pools” – trading venues that preserve the anonymity of the investor. As part of the post-crisis regulatory frenzy, EU and UK regulators decided to try to push more trading of shares on to public exchanges and increase disclosure requirements. – Juliet Samuel for the Telegraph (£) Mark Wallace: The Brexit process is neither a triumph nor a disaster – but it is going well “You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose,” as Mario Cuomo, the old Governor of New York, put it, neatly summing up the difference between life on the soap box and life in power. The chief struggle of almost every politician is in marrying up the two convincingly – trying to live up to the electorate’s demand for a compelling vision, and then fulfilling it in the face of tiresome practicalities like budgets and bureaucracies. ‘We often prefer to remember the high-flown oratory of the campaign trail. But cruel reality insists on testing the pledges and predictions of almost all campaigns’ Some try to bridge the gap by simply campaigning in prose, too. A few years ago it seemed that the “BoreCons” – stodgy, steady centre right politicians like Angela Merkel, Canada’s Stephen Harper and New Zealand’s John Key – were set to inherit the earth. – Mark Wallace for i News Liam Halligan: Why all le fuss? Soon we’ll have a passport to the global economy Some scream “betrayal” at the news a French company has won the contract to print British passports for a decade from 2019. This is short-sighted, hypocritical and wrong. Having voted for Brexit, I fully understand the case for leaving the European Union is based on regaining control of our laws, borders and money. But it also rests on the need for the world’s fifth-biggest economy to conduct much more overseas trade, staying as open as possible to commercial and investment ties with our European neighbours and the rest of the world too. There is a huge global economy out there, 85 per cent of which will be beyond the EU once Britain leaves. This is where the growth is, the emerging giants of the East, the mass markets of tomorrow with which Britain must trade to secure future prosperity. – Liam Halligan for The Sun Leo McKinstry: Anti-Brexiteers are still trying to thwart the people’s will One element of their strategy is to create such a climate of despair over Brexit that the public will eventually demand a second referendum. To this end, every difficulty is turned into an insurmountable obstacle, every problem into a crisis. But the Remoaners’ bleak narrative is persistently confounded by events. The economy has not gone into meltdown. On the contrary, it has enjoyed robust growth. Similarly the talks on Brexit have progressed far more successfully and swiftly than the Remoaners predicted. Last week, Theresa May concluded the transition deal for Britain, which opens the way for fruitful negotiations on trade. In contrast to the Remoaners’ manufactured despondency, the mood in Brussels is now positive, with the European Council confirming “its readiness to initiate work towards a balanced, ambitious and wide-ranging free trade agreement”. – Leo McKinstry for the Express Ben Kelly: We must stop squabbling about the referendum result: the battle for Britain has just begun The EU referendum has long since passed, but the battle for Britain has only just begun. A minority of MPs continue to fight to prevent Brexit, but the far more important debate – about what kind of country Brexit Britain is going to be – is really starting to heat up. In this battle, the Leave/Remain divide is irrelevant. The Leave movement was an inherently unstable disparate coalition of people who wanted the UK to leave the EU for a wide variety of reasons. Beyond that, our stance on a whole range of different political issues vary, and no philosophy unified us. That’s why there was so much in-fighting before the referendum and no continuity movement post-referendum. What’s at stake now is clear. The victor between the two most significant tribes in the emerging ideological battle for Britain will determine our future success or failure. – Ben Kelly for Reaction Brexit comment in brief Brexit will no longer be a significant event – John Mills for Prospect Lemon-suckers of Remainer corner joined in the hush as the PM delivered a grown-up statement on the recent European Council and for her speech about Russia – Quentin Letts for the Daily Mail Protectionism is an elitist meme to silence the plebs – Dr Niall McCrae for Bruges Group The EU’s misguided tax on tech giants is doomed to fail – Ryan Bourne for City A.M. The UK cannot afford to turn away skilled migrants – Rachel Cunliffe for City A.M. Industry stands to gain from Brexit – if it ups its game – Brian Monteith for CapX After Brexit: the case for economic cooperation without political integration – Mark Brolin for the IEA Brexit news in brief Duke of Cambridge appoints Brexit official as new private secretary – Belfast Telegraph Labour Leaver Graham Stringer hit out at Labour colleagues attempting to thwart Britain’s democratic decision to leave the EU – Express London should team up with Zurich in push for open European markets, says peer – Telegraph Call for post-Brexit trade deals to safeguard against invasive species – Guardian Stop being so ‘sentimental’ about the blue passport contract, says Government Minister – Telegraph Stanley Johnson: Boris would be an ‘absolutely superb Prime Minister – the voice that roared’ – Telegraph