Welcome to the Guardian's weekly Brexit briefing. If you would like to receive it as a weekly email, please sign up here. You can catch up with our Brexit Means podcast right here.
If you are in London next week, you can also join the conversation in person at the Guardian's Live event Newsroom: Halfway through Brexit. Join me, Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at Kings College London, Eloise Todd, the chief executive officer of Best for Britain, and our chair for the evening, the Guardian's deputy political editor, Anne Perkins, on Tuesday 13 March.
The top stories This was the week everything changed, and nothing changed. Brexit news was dominated by Theresa May's big speech on Friday, ostensibly outlining what Britain wanted from the next stage of negotiations on trade. Close followers of the debate will have been disappointed that there was little new detail on how the UK intends to persuade the EU to grant it frictionless access to the single market without abiding by its rules. What was welcomed on all sides was a shift in tone. For the first time May admitted that access may not be entirely frictionless and not all rules can be avoided. Britain would still aim high, she said, but was prepared to settle for something in between. After two special cabinet sessions and an awayday at Chequers to try to get her government to agree, this was news of sorts, and was watched live by 532,000 people, according to viewing figures. Whether it flies in Brussels or satisfies Brexit voters remains less clear, but the crucial thing as far as Westminster was concerned was that a fragile government lived to fight another day. There was surprisingly little mention of the other big story of the week – the EU's proposal for keeping things frictionless in Northern Ireland. The plan effectively relies on full regulatory harmonisation between north and south instead of alternative British suggestions for a customs partnership, which Brussels and Dublin feel are unworkable. The fierce backlash in London toward a plan that Brussels felt had been agreed to in December means the path forward is currently blocked by continued disagreement over the last phase of negotiations. Time is running out to agree a transition deal. Another climbdown by the Brits – over the rights of EU citizens who arrive during the transition phase – was quickly shot down by the EU parliament, which said it does not go far enough. Although May insisted at the House of Commons on Monday that both sides were "close to an agreement", things currently appear to be going backwards on the bit that was meant to be agreed and going nowhere on the bit that was meant to looking forward. Instead, it fell to a series of past prime ministers to try to break the deadlock last week, with a series of impassioned pleas for the country to think again on Brexit. First up was John Major, who called for MPs to be given a free vote on whether there should be a second referendum. Then Tony Blair chimed in to argue that May had no hope of achieving her aims and that the EU should help walk Britain back off the cliff edge. Best of the rest The US is holding up post-Brexit aviation talks by attempting to weaken UK trade rights. Michel Barnier is growing impatient with the absence of his counterpart, David Davis. Theresa May's Brexit vision was dismissed as unrealistic in Brussels. The Irish government warned that only a customs union can avoid the need for a hard border. Europe doesn't trust May, says Rafael Behr, because it knows she is a prisoner of the Brexit ultras. Business needs to speak up to save Britain from Brexit, says Polly Toynbee. Top comment In a blistering editorial, the Observer argued that Friday was a dark day for all: Be in no doubt. Theresa May's watershed Brexit speech on Friday was a sobering defeat for the UK. It was a defeat for the Leavers' vision of a sovereign country freed from the constraints imposed by European politicians, laws and regulations. It was a defeat for those who voted Remain and hoped against hope that Britain would, at the last moment, draw back from this gross act of national self-harm. Jonathan Freedland, writing in the Guardian, said we should resist the urge to feel sorry for the prime minister. The temptation to feel sorry for May should be resisted. For May is not a passive victim in this story. If she's shackled, it's in chains that she forged herself …. No one forced May to deliver yet another speech, rather than issue a British set of trade guidelines, just as nothing prevented her writing a UK version of the draft withdrawal agreement put out by Brussels on Wednesday. Nothing, that is, except the difficulty of getting her own cabinet to agree on a common position. Top tweet Dutch commentator Joris Luyendijk urges British newspaper readers to spend more time looking at European cartoons for a sense of how Brexit is viewed on the continent. | 
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Theresa May's Mansion House speech on Friday. Photograph: Leon Neal/AP 
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