Theresa May to trigger Brexit process next Wednesday Prime Minister Theresa May is to officially notify the European Union next Wednesday that the UK is leaving. Downing Street said she would write a letter to the European Council, adding that it expected negotiations on the terms of exit and future relations to then begin as quickly as possible. The move comes nine months after a referendum in which the UK voted to leave by a margin of 51.9% to 48.1%. An EU spokesman said it was “ready and waiting” for the letter. Under the Article 50 process, talks on the terms of exit and future relations are not allowed until the UK formally tells the EU it is leaving. If all goes according to the two year negotiations set out in the official Article 50 timetable, Brexit should happen in March 2019. – BBC The impending launch of Britain’s departure from the European Union has left campaigners against Brexit with a conundrum: fight on and seek to block the decision, or adapt and seek a new voice in the process? For the organisers of a protest march scheduled to take place in London on 25 March, it is proving a controversial, and perhaps debilitating, choice. “Watered-down pap” and “going mushy” are just two of the angry online responses to a rebranding exercise… In place of its original slogan “Stop Brexit”, the latest billboard campaign promoting Unite For Europe’s march on parliament this weekend has the rather less blunt catchline: “Make your voice heard”. – The Guardian PM vows to ‘negotiate hard’ for best Brexit deal – Sky News Brexit will be triggered on March 29. And Downing Street repeats: no early election – ConservativeHome Ambassador warns of Brexit bill battle after Theresa May sets date for Article 50 – Independent Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May relations hit new low – Daily Mail What is Article 50? A guide to what happens now – BBC Europe has forgotten what it means for a nation to govern itself. Article 50 will remind them – Janet Daley for the Daily Telegraph BBC risks undermining Brexit and damaging UK with ‘pessimistic and skewed’ coverage, 70 MPs warn The BBC risks undermining Brexit and damaging the UK’s reputation with its “pessimistic and skewed” coverage, MPs have warned. More than 70 MPs from across the political spectrum have written to Lord Hall, the director-general of the BBC, accusing the corporation of portraying the UK as a “xenophobic” nation that regrets the vote to leave the EU. They say that the corporation has failed to “break out of pre-referendum pessimism” and accept the “economic good news” the UK has enjoyed since the referendum. The letter comes after months of mounting anger in the Conservative Party about the corporation’s coverage of Brexit in the wake of the EU referendum. – Daily Telegraph Tory MP Julian Knight, who co-ordinated the letter, warned that the BBC was in danger of losing touch with its viewers and giving too much airtime to ‘diehard Remainers’. It had a duty to offer impartial coverage of Brexit, he said. Mr Knight, a former BBC journalist who backed Remain during last year’s referendum campaign, insisted the letter was not intended as ‘BBC baiting’. But he added: ‘It must be careful not to lose the trust of the 52 per cent who voted Leave, as well as those Remainers like myself who respect the will of the people and want to get on with delivering Brexit.’ – Daily Mail BBC’s Brexit coverage pessimistic and skewed, say MPs – BBC The BBC’s bias against Brexit could do real harm to Britain – Daily Telegraph Editorial Hammond urged to cut Britain’s EU divorce bill Brexit-supporting cabinet ministers are demanding that the chancellor caps Britain’s EU “divorce bill” at £3 billion, The Times has learnt. The Brexiteers are concerned that Philip Hammond will not be sufficiently tough with the EU, which is set to demand up to €60 billion (£50 billion) from Britain once Theresa May triggers Article 50 on Wednesday next week… One senior government source said: “As the prime minister said, we do not want to pay huge sums. We think anything over £2 billion or £3 billion is not possible. There are those round the cabinet table who think we are going to have to pay a huge amount to get out, and the chancellor is on that side.” – The Times (£) Prominent Tory MP and veteran eurosceptic Sir Bill Cash suggested ministers “bear in mind” a post-war deal that saw Germany’s debt halved amid likely demands Britain pay a multi-billion pound EU exit fee. Brussels’ chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is ready to hit the Prime Minister with a eye-watering departure bill as soon as Article 50 divorce talks are triggered next Wednesday – with it believed the EU could demand the UK pay as much as £50billion. But Sir Bill yesterday afternoon advised Brexit minister David Jones to contemplate the 1953 London Debt Agreement should his department be faced with such a bill. – Daily Express Britain can complete trade talks within two years, says UK’s EU envoy The UK can complete the negotiations for a new trading relationship with the EU inside the two-year Brexit timetable since UK and EU trading regulations are already in complete convergence, Sir Tim Barrow, the new UK envoy to the EU, has said. He also said the EU had already “welcomed the clarity of the UK naming a date for the triggering of article 50”, saying the date was full square inside the government’s previously announced timetable. Barrow, making his first extended appearance since taking over as UK envoy from Sir Ivan Rogers, said article 50 put the EU under a duty to negotiate not just the terms of the divorce, but also the future UK-EU trading relationship. – The Guardian German bid to ban British ‘moles’ from EU meetings German MPs have launched an audacious bid to get British officials and politicians banned from EU meetings over fears they will leak the bloc’s Brexit strategy to Downing Street. Members of the Bundestag have begun grumbling about the UK having “moles” in Brussels and claim they are using underhand tactics to gain an edge ahead of the upcoming divorce talks. They want to bring in new rules which will put British representatives in “quarantine” meaning they cannot attend any meetings or event which are to do with Brexit. Amazingly the proposed measure would even include our elected MEPs, who would no longer be allowed to take part in crucial debates concerning the future relationship between the EU and the UK. – Daily Express Eurocrats quietly axe EU parliament budget debate Eurocrats have quietly axed a traditional debate on the size and priorities of the EU parliament’s budget following a backlash against chronic waste of taxpayers’ cash, Express.co.uk can reveal. Senior officials have dropped plans to hold a discussion on 2018 spending commitments in light of a series of controversies over pay and perks afforded to officials. Brussels has been stung by criticism over its proposals to bankroll a permanent armed guard for the EU parliament president, Antonio Tajani, and to invest in new restaurant and creche facilities. The plans to boost its budget to an eye watering £1.7bn provoked a strong negative response from the media and voters when they were leaked last month, coming at a time of continuing austerity in many member states. – Daily Express Merkel challenger faces early test of popularity Angela Merkel’s party may be turfed out of power by the Social Democrats in a state election seen as the first test of her chance of being ousted in the national vote this autumn. Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) rules the small western state of Saarland in coalition with the SPD, mirroring the power sharing within the federal government in Berlin. The SPD’s choice of Martin Schulz, 61, as leader on Sunday led to a surge in support for the party and forecasts that it could oust the CDU in Saarland. – The Times (£) Daniel Hannan: The triggering of Article 50 should jolt the last irreconcilable Remainers out of their fantasies Only now, perhaps, will all sides accept that Britain really is leaving the EU. The triggering of Article 50 sets in motion a legal process. By the end of March 2019, deal or no deal, we shall be out. Some commentators see this deadline as a disadvantage to Britain, but I’m blowed if I can understand why. Imagine the alternative. If there were no cut-off, the EU would be able to string the process out indefinitely, exacting annual payments from us all the while, and creating the “long-term business uncertainty” that Remainers warned against during the referendum… The formal triggering of Article 50 ought to jolt the last irreconcileables out of their fantasies. Having tried to reverse the referendum result in both houses of Parliament and in the courts, even the most hardline Remainers must accept that Brexit is happening. – Daniel Hannan for the Daily Telegraph Fraser Nelson: If the EU didn’t like Boris’s prison guard joke, why conform to the stereotype? Yesterday Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, gave an interview to Bild on Sunday where he boasted that no other EU country would consider leaving the union once they see how harshly Britain will be treated by his in negotiations. ‘The remaining member states will fall in love with each other again and renew their vows with the European Union,’ he said. ‘They will all see from Britain’s example that leaving the EU is a bad idea.’ This is precisely the mentality that the Foreign Secretary held up to ridicule – the idea that the EU is held together by fear of what happens if you leave. And the European Commission goes about threatening vengeance and suggests that the aim of the negotiation will be a beating, pour encourager les autres. Fraser Nelson for The Spectator Ryan Bourne: Beware comparing Brits’ productivity unfavourably to that of the French or Germans Since the financial crisis, output per hour worked has been effectively stagnant, only re-hitting the peaks seen at the end of 2007 in late 2016. This is unprecedented. To see the scale of the deviation from trend, if it had continued to grow as it did prior to the crisis (not that one might expect that to happen), it would be around 18 per cent higher today. Surely then governments should seek to “target” improvements in labour productivity as an ambition of policy? Should we try to emulate higher productivity levels elsewhere? In an interesting short essay for a new book Economic Ideas You Should Forget, Monika Bütler argues the opposite. In fact, she shows that targeting improvements in a country’s overall measured labour productivity can produce perverse results. – Ryan Bourne for City A.M. Isabel Oakeshott: A new role for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. They should become worldwide Ambassadors for Brexit Following a successful official visit to France, the Duke of Cambridge may have earned some respite from nagging questions over whether he represents good value for money. His ill-judged decision to eschew the annual Commonwealth Day commemorations in favour of a laddish weekend on the ski slopes thrust an unflattering spotlight on how few public engagements he undertakes relative to his nonagenarian grandparents – but his ‘offensive de charme’ across the Channel is a reminder that he and the Duchess are powerful diplomatic assets. – Isabel Oakeshott for ConservativeHome Christopher Howarth: Sturgeon’s vanishing independence options. There would be no automatic EU or EEA membership for Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon has demanded an immediate referendum on Scottish independence. No surprises – she is a Scottish separatist after all. But don’t be fooled: the shrill and insistent tone of this new demand is not the product of a confident, separatist movement, but the result of a growing an irreversible weakness in the intellectual case for independence. For not only do polls show that Scots do not seek a new poll, and would not vote for separation if there were one, but the alternative that the SNP is offering – immediate EU membership – does not exist and, even if it did, would not suit Scotland’s economic and political interests. – Christopher Howarth for ConservativeHome Brexit comment in brief Will the UK really get a good Brexit deal in two years? – Faisal Islam for Sky News Why Brexit won’t have a significant effect on your long term investments – Richard Dyson for the Daily Telegraph Brexit can’t just be for England, Theresa May must make it work for Wales too – Rupert Myers for the Daily Telegraph Brexit news in brief Brexit will place ‘huge burden’ on Parliament – Sky News Nigel Farage: Carswell ‘stopping Ukip becoming radical anti-immigration party’ – The Guardian Tim Farron pledges ‘two more years of fighting’ for second Brexit referendum – Daily Express EU believes Britain cannot escape multi-billion pound ‘divorce bill’, UK Ambassador warns – Independent Britain’s Mears Group says profit up 13 pct, sees no Brexit impact – Daily Mail French Presidential rivals clash over Brexit in first TV debate – The Times (£)