May manages to further alienate EU with Trump as her Brexit best buddy | | | As PM cosied up to the unpredictable US president, in London Labour stayed true to form by failing to make its stance coherent | | |  May travelled to the US to rekindle the 'special relationship'. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
| | | Jon Henley and Peter Walker
| | | Welcome to the Guardian's weekly Brexit briefing, a summary of developments as Britain edges towards the EU exit door. If you'd like to receive it as a weekly early morning email, please sign up here. A quick heads-up: the Guardian's latest in-depth Brexit means ... podcast is out now, and you can listen to it here. This time we look at what Brexit could mean for the UK's multibillion-pound financial services industry – and hear from some EU rivals who are eager to capitalise. Also this: producing the Guardian's independent, in-depth journalism takes a lot of time and money. We do it because we believe our perspective matters – and it might well be your perspective, too. If you value our Brexit coverage, become a Guardian Supporter and help make our future more secure. Thank you. The big picture | | | Barely 48 hours after the supreme court ruled that the government would have to obtain the consent of parliament before it could trigger article 50 – though not, to No 10's relief, of the devolved assemblies – there the draft law was. The EU (notification of withdrawal) bill, all two clauses and 137 words of it, aims to "confer power on the prime minister to notify, under article 50(2) of the treaty on European Union, the UK's intention to withdraw from the EU". Parliament will get just five days to debate the bill – far from enough for some MPs. Many are also upset that the formal policy paper on Brexit, reluctantly promised by the government, is not certain to be published before the vote. In case you missed it, May then went to the US to rekindle the "special relationship". The UK and US were "100% behind Nato", but she and Donald Trump looked out of step on Russia – and the "UK-US trade negotiation agreement" they signed is, at this stage, just a promise. | | | For some, it all smacked a little of desperation. Having tossed away her keys to the EU single market, as my colleague Jonathan Freedland put it, May "will soon be homeless" – and Trump knows it: He will have seen May as that most desperate of creatures: the house buyer who rashly sold her old house before she had found a new one. For all the niceties, he will have seen May as a sucker who needs to make a deal. And he will look forward to naming his price. Not to mention, of course, that no sooner was she back in London – via Istanbul – than the prime minister was forced to confront the consequences of Trump's anti-Muslim travel ban and the outrage it provoked. With its chosen best Brexit buddy as untameable and as unpredictable as this, it begins to look like life outside the EU may not be quite such smooth sailing as the government hoped ... The view from Europe There is a real risk that by pursuing close ties – particularly on trade – with Trump, Britain will end up poisoning good relations with the rest of the EU at a time when it most needs them. The Centre for European Reform's Charles Grant put it this way: The more that British ministers cosy up to Trump and avoid criticising his worst excesses, and the more the president's pronouncements ... reveal a worldview far from that of the Europeans (including the British), the more alien the British appear to other Europeans, and the more their soft power erodes. EU officials and diplomats warned last week that pursuing trade talks with non-EU countries risked undermining the UK's efforts to negotiate a favourable Brexit deal and may also be illegal. | | | Emmanuel Macron criticised UK's Brexit approach. Photograph: Wael Hamzeh/EPA
| | | The French presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron painted an even darker long-term picture, saying Britain had always "lived in an equilibrium with Europe" but now risked "becoming a vassal state ... the junior partner of the United States". Guy Verhofstadt, the EU parliament's chief negotiator, made clear that cosying up to the US would not be viewed kindly on the continent. Trump and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, were determined to break up the EU and were actively working towards exit referendums in Berlin and Paris, Verhofstadt said, "hoping for a disintegration of the EU". Mario Giro, Italy's deputy foreign minister, meanwhile, warned that Britain and the EU were heading into an "economic cold war" over Brexit Рand that there were more hardliners against the UK than it appeared. Meanwhile, back in Westminster Or Cardiff, actually, where May had the tricky task of telling the leaders of the devolved assemblies of Scotland and Wales Рalong with the DUP's Arlene Foster and Sinn F̩in's Michelle O'Neill, thanks to the collapse of the Northern Ireland administration Рthat they would, in effect, have no say on the post-EU world. This was the final meeting before the likely triggering of article 50 of the joint ministerial committee, a pre-existing talking shop given a new lease of life for talks about how Brexit can be managed across the various parts of the UK. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted against Brexit, while the two biggest parties in Wales want continued access to the single market. Before the talks, however, May said she had a mandate to "secure the right deal for the whole of the UK". | | | Translation? No favours, no veto. The most probable result is May going into Brexit negotiations with only the backing of one of the UK's four constituent parts. Back in London, one of the few constants of the Brexit process has been Labour's travails over finding a coherent response to it, and this week was no exception. After Jeremy Corbyn confirmed he would seek the maximum level of party discipline to oblige his MPs to vote for the article 50 bill, a number of backbenchers rebelled and two frontbenchers stepped down. Even thousands of ordinary members were not happy. Undaunted, Corbyn said he understood the worries, but warned that shadow cabinet ministers who did not fall into line could expect to lose their jobs. Labour's Brexit travails are far from over. You should also know ... - Car manufacturers and retailers insisted the UK must keep some benefits of the single market and customs union after Brexit.
- The UK's top post-Brexit trade deal negotiator will be paid £160,000 a year – more than the prime minister.
- Applications by EU nationals to study at UK universities have fallen by 7% since the referendum.
- Theresa May held talks with Ireland's taoiseach, Enda Kenny, over Irish fears of a "hard border" with Northern Ireland after Brexit.
- The new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station will be delayed because Brexit will involve leaving Euratom, Europe's atomic power treaty.
- The Institute for Government said interdepartmental squabbles, low staffing levels and "big challenges" were hindering Brexit progress.
- About 900,000 British citizens live in other EU countries – fewer than the 1.2 million previously thought, the Office for National Statistics said.
- Unite for Europe, an umbrella group of remain campaigners, plans the biggest march seen in modern UK history on 25 March.
- Almost half of exports from UK cities go to the EU, compared with just 15% to the US and 4% to China, the Centre for Cities thinktank said.
Read this: | | | In the Guardian, John Harris urges Labour MPs to think twice before they follow their leader's instructions and vote to trigger article 50. Trump, who was not in office when the UK voted to leave the EU, leaves the UK facing a fork in the road, Harris says. Hard Brexit and Trump, or Europe: At a moment so freighted with historic significance, when the UK may be about to trade in an enduring alliance with Europe for a role as the ally of a truly terrifying US president, will it really be Labour MPs' choice to back the most reckless course imaginable? In the Financial Times (paywall), Gideon Rachman makes a similar point, arguing that Trump is a disaster for Brexit because Britain will no longer be able to look to the US for support after its divorce from the EU: Were it not for Brexit, the UK government would be able to take an appropriately wary approach to Mr Trump ... As it is, Britain has been thrown into the arms of an American president that the UK's foreign secretary has called a madman. The Emperor Nero has now taken power in Washington – and the British are having to smile and clap as he sets fires and reaches for his fiddle. Back at the Guardian, Jo Stevens explains why she is resigning from the shadow cabinet to vote against the triggering of article 50:
There have been no clear guarantees about protecting single market access, employment, environmental and consumer rights, security and judicial safeguards and the residency rights of many of my constituents and others across Britain ... I can't change how I feel about this. Tweet of the week The writer and journalist Caitlin Moran, summing last week up: | | | | |
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