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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

UK faces 'unavoidable' barriers to trade outside customs union, says EU's chief Brexit negotiator - Politics live

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator (left), and David Davis, the Brexit secretary, speaking to broadcasters after their talks in Downing Street.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator (left), and David Davis, the Brexit secretary, speaking to broadcasters after their talks in Downing Street. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/AP

Afternoon summary

  • Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has said barriers to trade will be “unavoidable” if the UK leaves the customs union. (See 4.21pm.)
  • Opposition MPs have accused the government of putting economic prosperity and the Northern Ireland peace process at risk by ruling out any form of customs union membership after Brexit. (See 9.16am.)

Asked about Trump’s comments, the prime minister’s spokesman said:

The prime minister is proud of having an NHS that is free at the point of delivery. NHS funding is at a record high and was prioritised in the budget with an extra £2.8bn. In the recent Commonwealth Fund international survey, the NHS was rated the best in the world for a second time.

  • Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, has told MPs that the government has not ruled out running the East Coast rail franchise. As the BBC’s Norman Smith, he made the comment in a Commons statement on the future of the franchise.
  • Proof of identity should be required from voters before they can vote at a polling station, just as people provide ID to collect a parcel, Electoral Commission chair Sir John Holmes has said. As the Press Association reports, his comments came ahead of trials of such a new rule at five councils at forthcoming local elections in England on May 3: Bromley, Gosport, Swindon, Watford and Woking. Concerns about disfranchisement of people who did not have passports and driving licences could be addressed through the introduction of a free elector’s card with photo, as already used in Northern Ireland, throughout the rest of the UK, Sir John told the annual conference of the Association of Electoral Administrators in Blackpool. He estimated some 3.5m people did not currently have photo ID and the cost of extending the elector’s card would be £3m.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

Rees-Mogg suggests he can't become PM because he has too many children

The Press Association has filed from what the Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said when he spoke to journalism students at PA HQ this morning. Asked if he wanted to be prime minister, Rees-Mogg played down the idea, saying he had too many children. He replied:

I think want is very much the wrong word.

If you look at Mrs May, it seems to be quite clear she does it because it’s her duty to do it, I don’t get the impression that it’s a lot of fun for her - it’s hard work.

I’ve got six children, it would be very, very difficult as a family man so want is not the right word, I’m very happy as a backbencher and what I do want is Mrs May to stay prime minister.

In the past Rees-Mogg has played down the prospect of his becoming prime minister on the grounds that he is not a minister. His latest argument seems less persuasive, not least because being PM does have some advantages (as well as many disadvantages) if you are a parent with young children; you work from home, and so you see much more of your family than you do you are an MP commuting to Westminster every week.

The shipping industry warns that any delay in movement at Dover or any other roll-on roll-off ports will have a “profound impact” on every sector in the economy.

Guy Platten, chief executive of the UK Chamber of Shipping, issued a scathing statement urging politicians to stop playing games. He said:

Trade between the UK and the EU is done on a just-in-time basis, any delay to the movement of trade will have a profound knock-on impact into virtually every sector of the economy.

Make no mistake, having trade move freely matters to the European Union as well as the UK. Spanish farmers, Italian winemakers, German car factories and Scandinavian furniture manufacturers are all just as anxious as British industries to ensure a deal is struck.

What has to stop is the point-scoring and political gamesmanship. The shipping industry that moves 95% of international trade cannot plan for the transition until we know what we are transitioning towards. We need progress and we need it now.

May accused by statistics chief of using misleading figures about NHS performance in Labour-run Wales

Theresa May has been been accused by the UK Statistics Authority using misleading figures about the performance of the NHS in Wales.

At PMQs last month she quotes figures apparently showing that more than seven times as many patients were waiting over 12 hours in Welsh casualty departments than in England. But the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir David Norgrove, has now said the comparison used by the prime minister was “not valid”. He made the comment in an open letter (pdf) released in response to a complaint (pdf) from Carwyn Jones, the Welsh first minister.

In his letter Norgrove said:

You are right to say that the comparison is not valid.

The figure used for England refers to the accident and emergency wait time from the decision to admit to admission into another part of the health service.

The figure used for Wales represents the entire time patients wait from arriving to leaving accident and emergency services, including the time from decision to admit to actual admission.

May, like her predecessor David Cameron, has repeatedly criticised the performance of the NHS in Wales at PMQs, citing a range of performance figures (not just the ones Jones complained about). They have done so because the Labour-led Welsh government is in charge of health in Wales, and criticising Wales partly counters claims the Tories are mismanaging health in England. Jeremy Corbyn has hit back by accusing the UK government of not giving its Welsh counterpart the funding it needs.

David Norgrove’s letter to Carwyn Jones
David Norgrove’s letter to Carwyn Jones Photograph: UK Statistics Authority

Updated

Barnier/Davis press statements - Summary

Here are the main points from the David Davis/Michel Barnier press statements.

  • Barnier, the EU’s chief brexit negotiator, said barriers to trade would be ‘unavoidable’ if the UK left the customs union. He said:

Without the customs union, outside the single market, barriers to trade and goods and services are unavoidable.

  • Barnier said it was now time for the UK to decide what it wants after Brexit.

[The] time has come to make [a] choice.

He also said that the EU would not be finalising its guidelines for the talks on the future relationship until the EU summit in March. That gave the UK time to “clarify its position”, he said. He said the EU was still waiting for the UK to decide its official position. In the meantime, he would not be giving a “running commentary” on developments in British politics, he said.

  • He said the UK and the EU would have to “play by the same rules” during the transition. Sky’s Faisal Islam sees that as Barnier refuting what Theresa May said last week about EU nationals arriving in the UK during the transition not necessarily getting the same rights as EU nationals who were here before.
  • Barnier said that there would only be “certainty” about the transition when the withdrawal agreement gets decided at the end of the year. He said:

The certainty about this transition will only come with the ratification of the withdrawal agreement.

  • David Davis, the Brexit secretary, claimed it was “perfectly clear” what the UK wanted. He said:

We have already published a great deal about our proposals, in terms of what the customs arrangements will be, what the other arrangements will be with respect to being outside the union. We have said in terms we want a comprehensive free trade agreement and we want a customs agreement and to make that as frictionless as possible, to make as much trade as currently exists as free as possible, while still giving ourselves the opportunity to make free trade deals with the rest of the world ... It is perfectly clear what we want to do.

  • Davis said the UK and EU negotiating teams would be starting an “intense period of negotiation” when they meet in Brussels tomorror for talks. (Earlier Barnier said both sides wanted to “accelerate” the talks. See 10.19am.)
  • Davis said he was confident that the UK and the EU would reach an agreement on the transition by the European Council summit in March.
Michel Barnier (left) and David Davis speaking to the press in Number 10.
Michel Barnier (left) and David Davis speaking to the press in Number 10. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Updated

UK faces 'unavoidable' barriers to trade outside customs union

Here are the key lines from Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator.

  • Barnier said the UK would face ‘unavoidable’ barriers to trade outside the customs union.
  • He said the time had come for the UK to make a choice about what it wants.

The time has come to make a choice.

A full summary is coming soon.

Updated

David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has tweeted about his talks with Michel Barnier.

David Davis claims it is 'perfectly clear' what UK wants from Brexit talks

David Davis and Michel Barnier are taking questions now.

Q: [To Davis] How can your party agree what it wants?

Davis says the UK government has published a great deal about what it wants. It wants a comprehensive free trade agreement, and a customs agreement, allowing trade to be as frictionless as posssible. It is “perfectly clear” what the UK wants, he says.

Q: [To Barnier] Do you know what the UK wants yet?

Barnier says the EU will produce its guidelines for the trade talks in March. That gives the UK time to clarify what it wants.

And that is it.

I will post more from their brief press statement shortly.

Updated

Michel Barnier and David Davis are recording their statements for the broadcasters now.

This is from Stewart Jackson, the former Tory MP who is now Davis’s chief of staff.

Theresa May has tweeted a picture of herself with Michel Barnier.

They both seem to be having a refreshing, pre-prandial glass of water. Not very French ...

Here is the King’s Fund, the health thinktank, responding to President Trump’s comments about the NHS. (See 1.58pm.)

Here is the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on the state of the government’s Brexit deliberations.

The academic and Washington Post columnist Brian Klaas reckons, in the debate about British versus American healthcare, the facts are against Donald Trump.

Corbyn says Trump wrong about the NHS and those who marched to defend it

Jeremy Corbyn has also also hit back at President Trump over the NHS. (See 1.58pm.) He says (correctly) that Trump 100% misinterpreted the motives of those taking part in the pro-NHS march in London on Saturday.

Here is my colleague Martin Pengelly’s story about Trump’s tweet about the NHS.

Jeremy Hunt rebukes Trump for condemning NHS

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, has hit back at Trump over the NHS. (See 1.58pm.)

Trump says NHS is 'going broke and not working'

Donald Trump has criticised the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and Theresa May for her stance on terrorism, but now he’s really blown it with the British public. He’s had a go at the national religion, aka the NHS.

Trump, of course, has a point about the NHS “going broke”, if that is taken to refer to a funding crisis. But his comment about it “not working” is unlikely to endear him to British voters who, paradoxically, are quite happy to complain about conditions in the NHS while confidently believing that it is the best system in the world.

(The paradox is explained by the fact that, even if the health service underperforms, people are prepared to overlook that because their support for the principles underpinning the NHS as a whole - that there should be universal, taxpayer-funded healthcare, free at the point of use and provided on the basis of need - is so strong.)

Updated

Rees-Mogg revives attacks on Hammond and civil servants over Brexit

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leading Tory Brexiter, has launched a fresh attack on Philip Hammond, the chancellor, telling students at a Press Association event this morning that Hammond is undermining Brexit government policy. He also took another swipe at civil servants. Here are the key points.

  • Rees-Mogg accused Hammond of trying to undermine government policy. He said:

There are concerns that there are some people close to government who are trying to undermine the government’s own policy.

It’s now been [made[ clear we’re not having the customs union, [it] is a reiteration of policy [that] the only person who seemed to be disagreeing with was the chancellor of the exchequer, and he ought to read up his constitution and think more carefully about what collective responsibility means.

  • He claimed civil servants were “politically biased” and claimed the economic models they use that show Brexit will damage the economy are flawed. He said:

When you take these models of what happens unless you stay in the customs union, they are all completely dependent on the inputs that you start with, and the inputs that they have started with are ones that lead to the conclusion that you have to stay in the customs union, other economists have used different inputs and looked at different modelling of global trade which says we’ll do extremely well by not being in the customs union.

And so do I think civil servants are politically biased, well I think the information the Treasury has produced is biased, but the blame must always be with ministers.

Lord O’Donnell has said that we’re snake oil salesmen and he was cabinet secretary up until 2011 and in 2010 George Osborne, then chancellor, set up the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Why did he set it up? He set it up because we needed an independent body because nobody trusted the figures coming from the Treasury, which were political.

And O’Donnell was cabinet secretary when this was going on, was he resigning over that? Saying it was a great affront to the impartiality of the civil ervice to say that they’d fiddled the figures when Gordon Brown was chancellor? I think not, I think he stayed on happily in his job and therefore I think this is not unusual.

(This comment glosses over the fact that the OBR, which is independent, has also been very negative about the economic impact of Brexit.)

Jacob Rees-Mogg speaking to postgraduate journalism diploma students at the Press Association in London today.
Jacob Rees-Mogg speaking to postgraduate journalism diploma students at the Press Association in London today. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has arrived at Downing Street, ITV’s Paul Brand reports.

The Telegraph’s Jack Maidment reckons Barnier got a Brexiter driver.

Irish PM asks UK to clarify what customs relationship it wants with EU after Brexit

Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, has urged the UK government to clarify what sort of customs relationship it wants with the EU after Brexit in the light of its latest statement about not staying in the customs union, the Irish Times reports. Varadkar said this morning it was “not entirely clear what exactly is being sought in terms of the UK’s relationship with the customs union and the UK’s relationship with the single market”.

Leo Varadkar.
Leo Varadkar. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters

No 10 lobby briefing - Summary

Here are the main points from the Downing Street lobby briefing.

  • Downing Street confirmed that the government is opposed to any form of customs union membership after Brexit. (See 11.47am.)
  • The prime minister’s spokesman played down suggestions that the government is looking at keeping the UK in a time-limited customs union with the EU after the transition to allow time for the government to sign and implement new trade deals that would compensate for the effect of being outside the EU customs union. In a reference to the Times story making this claim (see 10.51am), the spokesman said the story was “not something that I recognise”. The spokesman reaffirmed the government’s belief that the transition period should take about two years. But he also acknowledged that negotiating new trade deals could take time.

We’ve said that we want to be free to negotiate and sign those trade deals during the implementation period and then to bring them into force once we leave ... We can only bring them into force when they are ready.

  • The spokesman said that the government wanted to be able to strike free trade deals covering goods and services after Brexit and did not distinguish between the two. (There were claims last week that ministers were looking at a plan that that would keep the UK in the customs union for goods, allowing the UK to strike free trade deals covering services only after Brexit.)
  • The spokesman refused to say why, if the government was opposed to forming a new customs union with the EU after Brexit, it has included a clause in the taxation (cross-border trade) bill keeping this option open. My colleague Anushka Asthana has tweeted the key clause.
  • The spokesman insisted that the “highly-streamlined customs arrangement” and the “new customs partnership”, the two alternatives to customs union membership included in the government paper (pdf) published in August, were still being considered. He refused to say which was the preferred option. But he acknowledged that the “customs partnership” would be challenging to implement. As MLex’s Matthew Holehouse reports, the spokesman also refused to say whether the “highly-streamlined” option had been shown to be viable.

This is what the report published in August said about the two options.

A highly streamlined customs arrangement between the UK and the EU, streamlining and simplifying requirements, leaving as few additional requirements on EU trade as possible. This would aim to: continue some of the existing arrangements between the UK and the EU; put in place new negotiated and potentially unilateral facilitations to reduce and remove barriers to trade; and implement technology-based solutions to make it easier to comply with customs procedures. This approach involves utilising the UK’s existing tried and trusted third country processes for UK-EU trade, building on EU and international precedents, and developing new innovative facilitations to deliver as frictionless a customs border as possible.

A new customs partnership with the EU, aligning our approach to the customs border in a way that removes the need for a UK-EU customs border. One potential approach would involve the UK mirroring the EU’s requirements for imports from the rest of the world where their final destination is the EU. This is of course unprecedented as an approach and could be challenging to implement and we will look to explore the principles of this with business and the EU.

The government paper also describes the customs partnership plan as “innovative and untested”, leading the European parliament’s lead Brexit spokesman Guy Verhofstadt to describe it as a “fantasy” option last year.

  • The prime minister’s spokesman said that May would be using her meeting with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, today to “take stock”. Barnier is in London for a lunch with David Davis, the Brexit secretary, but May will drop in for a period. The spokesman said she would mainly focus on the transition in her talks with Barnier.
  • The spokesman reaffirmed May’s insistence that EU nationals coming to the UK after March 2019 will be in a different category from those who arrived before. He said that during the transition EU nationals will still be free to come to the UK. But the issue to be resolved was what rights they would accrue (ie, whether they will have the same long-term rights as EU nationals who arrived before March 2019). This was “a matter for negotiation”, the spokesman said. He said:

The point the PM made is that people who arrive after we have left the EU will arrive with different expectations and understandings of the way forward - and they will therefore be treated differently.

Precisely what that looks like is a matter for negotiations over the next few weeks. People will be free to live and work here. The issue is the rights they accrue as a result.

10 Downing Street.
10 Downing Street.
 Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

No 10 confirms government opposed to any customs union membership after Brexit

I’m just back from the Number 10 lobby briefing. This is what the prime minister’s official spokesman told journalists about the government’s customs union policy. He said:

The government’s position was set out in August in a future partnership paper on the customs union (pdf). We will be leaving the EU and the customs union and it is not government policy to be members of the customs union or a customs union. That paper in August set out two possible options and they are a highly-streamlined customs arrangement and a new customs partnership with the EU.

Yesterday the Number 10 statement ruling out membership of any customs union after Brexit took the form of a briefing from a source, not an on-the-record comment from an official spokesman.

I will post a full summary of the lobby briefing shortly.

The Unite general secretary Len McCluskey has put out this statement about Downing Street’s stance on the customs union.

This continued confusion is causing damaging uncertainty among the major manufacturers that I am meeting.

Investment decisions vital for our future are being delayed, threatening jobs.

I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing. I will post again after 11.30am.

There are some reports around this morning suggesting that, despite the Number 10 briefing yesterday ruling out any ongoing membership of the customs union, some sort of compromise is still being planned. Here are three versions of this story

Members of the war cabinet believe that a compromise could be struck by asking Brexiteers such as Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, and Michael Gove, the environment secretary, to sign up to a time-limited extension to elements of the existing customs union.

This may prove more attractive to Mr Gove than Mr Johnson and drive a wedge between them, some in Downing Street believe. A senior member of the government said that No 10 was prepared to play the pair off against each other and do “what any good leader does: divide and rule”.

A cabinet source expressed optimism that Mr Gove would be constructive during talks: “Michael is being given latitude to do what he wants in Defra in the expectation of absolute loyalty on other things.”

Mr Gove is also sensitive to the challenges in the Commons, where there is not a clear majority to leave the customs union. Mr Johnson said in September that the Brexit transition must last “not a second more” than two years.

It is understood that UK negotiators are considering a new “customs partnership” that would align UK and EU customs approaches and thus reduce the need for any customs border.

However, the technology to develop such a system will probably take years to introduce, even if Brussels were amenable to the idea. David Davis, Brexit secretary, last year admitted it was “a blue-sky idea”.

Still, it is appealing to the government because the delay would provide time to pacify hard Brexiters, who vehemently oppose a customs union with the EU because it would prevent Britain from conducting an independent trade policy.

Such was their alarm over the weekend that Eurosceptic backbenchers were reported to be preparing a coup to remove Mrs May from office if she pursued plans to keep Britain in a customs union.

The customs partnership arrangement would involve a new system in which the government would have to collect duty for European governments, and vice versa — a proposal that caused bemusement in Brussels when it was first mooted last August.

The government originally floated this “customs partnership” plan in this policy paper (pdf) in August last year.

No 10 has slapped down suggestions that we are staying in the Customs Union after the transition. But something is being cooked up in that area. One Cabinet Brexiteer told me: “it’s a Customs Agreement not a Customs Union.”

Another Cabinet Minister who sits on the Brexit Committee said “tough political realities” could mean some movement was necessary on the blanket rejection of the Customs Union. The minister said the government could see Jeremy Corbyn giving full backing to staying in the full-blown Customs Union (“when has he ever backed a free trade deal?”) and they need to be aware of the perils of being out-flanked by Labour on this in a House of Commons where, the minister said, “there’s probably a majority for staying in the Customs Union.”

So there is an expectation that Olly Robbins, the chief negotiator, may be about to present an approach that is intended to pull the Cabinet together (though one Downing Street source said “Boris is not onside”). It’s thought this could be based on the “mirroring” idea floated last summer by the government under which the U.K. would collect duty for the EU on non EU country imports. The government acknowledged at the time that this was a bold move which would require new and extensive technology. Experts say it would be impossible to get it in place by the end of the transition if the date for that remains 31/12/20. That may explain why there is talk of extending membership of the Customs Union (maybe by a year) beyond the end of the transition.

DUP welcomes May's clarification on customs union

Sammy Wilson, the DUP’s Brexit spokesman, has welcomed Number 10’s briefing yesterday ruling out any ongoing membership of the customs union.

Barnier says EU and UK have decided to 'accelerate' Brexit talks

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has been doorstepped by reporters on his way to catch the Eurostar in Brussels for his trip to London. He said he did not want to make a full statement about the latest statements from the UK government, but he did issue a brief response to the new Number 10 line on the customs union, as well as making a general point about the need to accelerate talks. Here are the key points.

  • Barnier reaffirmed that the UK had to respect the EU’s red lines. Asked about the briefing about how the UK is ruling out any form of customs union with the EU, he replied:

We knew the line of the government. We have to respect the red lines of the British government. But they have to respect the rules of the union.

By “respect the rules of the union”, Barnier means the UK cannot expect to get all the advantages of single market or customs union membership without accepting the obligations that go with it.

  • He said the EU and the UK had decided to “accelerate” Brexit talks. He said:

My feeling is we have not a minute to lose, because we want to achieve a deal ... There is [so much] work. So we have decided for this reason to accelerate all the contacts. I will be in London today. I will be tomorrow in Strasbourg to meet the European parliament. I will be in Frankfurt on Wednesday to meeet Mario Draghi and the team of the European Central Bank. And in parallel I will continue my tour of all the capitals, the 27 capitals, meeting the governments, meeting the national parliaments, meeting the trade unions, meeting the business communities. We want to reach a deal, respecting the guidelines of the European council, respecting the rules of the single market and the union.

Michel Barnier.
Michel Barnier. Photograph: Sky News

Here is another tweet from Michael Russell, the Scottish government’s Brexit minister, on the decision to rule out fully customs union membership.

Bradley to update MPs as Northern Ireland edges closer towards resumption of direct rule

Karen Bradley, the new Northern Ireland Secretary, will report to the Commons later this week on the progress of the political talks in Belfast aimed at restoring power sharing devolved government in the region.

Bradley may have little new to relay to fellow MPs as the two parties in the negotiations - the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein - appear to be as wide apart as ever over issues as such republican demands for an Irish Language Act and mechanisms on how to deal with the legacy of the Troubles.

Gerry Adams, the outgoing Sinn Fein President, stated on Sunday that he believed a deal could still be done with the DUP. Adams told the Andrew Marr show that he has “every confidence can Michelle O’Neill (Sinn Fein’s leader in the Northern Ireland Assembly) in terms of her ability to make friends with the unionist and to go forward on the basis of equality.”

But the smaller nationalist party the SDLP are gloomier in their assessment of the chances the negotiations will succeed.

Column Eastwood, the SDLP leader, said there was a grave danger that both the DUP and Sinn Fein were going to “write the obituary” of the Good Friday Agreement, the peace deal that helped end the conflict 20 years ago.

The atmosphere between the DUP and Sinn Fein remains tense at least, some would say toxic and has not been helped by the latest controversy to erupt over the latter’s policing spokesman Gerry Kelly. Kelly has been captured on CCTV removing a wheel clamp from his car in a no parking zone in central Belfast last Friday.

The DUP said how Sinn Fein deals with the former IRA Old Bailey bomber is yet another “test” of that party’s commitment to uphold the law. Some unionists are urging Kelly to quit his position as policing spokesman following the incident which they say proves the ex IRA man and former junior minister thinks he is above the law.

Meantime the clock is ticking towards another crucial deadline this week. The head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, David Sterling, told MPs last week that there needed to be a budget set for the region by 8 February. If there is no deal and no local politicians to approve of the regional budget then it will have to imposed by Westminster. The slide towards direct rule from London continues unless there is a breakthrough in the talks.

Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, says that if Theresa May is serious about ruling out any form of membership of the single market, she should sack Philip Hammond, the chancellor, for the speech he gave at Davos in which he said that he hoped that the UK and EU economies would move only “very modestly apart” after Brexit.

Hilary Benn, the Labour chair of the Commons Brexit committee, has describing ruling out any customs union with the EU as “a profound mistake”, my colleagues Peter Walker and Rajeev Syal report.

May accused of 'ideologically-driven madness' after she rules out any customs union after Brexit

For several weeks there was a lot of speculation that the government was planning a softer Brexit than expected, something that would involve a form of customs union with the EU after Brexit, so that goods could continue to be traded across the border without tariffs and, crucially, without other non-tariff barrier obstacles like rules of origin paperwork. This speculation came to a head at the end of last week as Westminster geared up for crucial meetings of the cabinet’s key Brexit committee on Wednesday and Thursday this week when the issue of what the UK actually wants is due to be settled for good.

On Friday last week Theresa May did not rule out the UK remaining in some form of customs union with the EU. Asked about this by Sky’s Faisal Islam, she replied:

What I want to do is ensure that we have got the best possible trade arrangements with China and with other countries around the world.

But this stance did not go down well with the Tory Brexiters. Yesterday the Sunday Times’s splash (paywall) started like this:

Theresa May will face a coup that would install a “dream team” of “three Brexiteers” if she persists with plans to keep Britain in a customs union with the European Union, Tory MPs warned last night.

And it quoted Jacob Rees-Mogg as saying:

We do not wish to be in ‘a’ customs union, ‘the’ customs union or ‘an’ customs union.

On the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning Amber Rudd, the home secretary, was keeping open the option of staying in some form of customs union with the EU. Asked if May would consider this option, Rudd said:

She has an open mind on it. We published a document last year saying how we would do it and we proposed either a customs arrangement or a customs partnership. Those are both alternatives we could look at.

But by the afternoon the thinking in Number 10 seemed to have changed, and it was decided to clarify the government’s position. A source told journalists:

It is not our policy to be in the customs union. It is not our policy to be in a customs union.

Here is my colleague Rajeev Syal’s overnight story.

This morning pro-Europeans are furious. Lord Falconer, the Labour former lord chancellor, thinks Downing Street firmed up its stance in response to the Sunday Times splash.

Michael Russell, the Scottish government’s Brexit minister, has accused May of “ideologically-driven madness”.

Chuka Umunna, the Labour MP who is coordinating efforts to oppose Brexit, has accused May of giving in to the European Research Group, the Tory caucus pushing for a hard Brexit headed by Rees-Mogg. In a thread starting here, Umunna also says May has ruled out the only option that would avoid a hard border in Ireland.

The Labour peer Andrew Adonis (inspired by the Guardian splash) says Farage/Mogg freemasonry is now running the country.

The Lib Dem leaders Sir Vince Cable says May is being foolish.

Tom Brake, the Lib Dem Brexit spokesman, accuses May of giving in to “crazed, extreme Brexiters”.

And Tim Farron, the former Lib Dem leader, accuses May of trashing the Good Friday agreement.

I will be covering more reaction as it comes in during the day.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Robert Halfon, the Conservative chair of the Commons education committee, gives a speech on higher education to the Centre for Social Justice.

11am: Downing Street lobby briefing.

1pm: David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has a working lunch with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator. Afterwards they will both give statements to the media.

2.30pm: Esther McVey, the new work and pensions secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

4pm: Simon Stevens, the NHS England chief executive, gives evidence to the Commons public accounts committee about the NHS cyberattack.

As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.

You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.

Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news from Jack Blanchard. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ top 10 must reads.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter

Updated

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Guitar World
Guitar World
“A few years ago, I decided, ‘I'm just going to play trumpet every day, no matter what. And after a couple of years of doing it, I'm going to make a record’”: Flea covers Frank Ocean and explains why he’s scratching a long-standing itch on his new album
Watch him doing double duty on trumpet and bass in the company of Jimmy Fallon
MusicRadar
MusicRadar
Anna Kendrick And Kieran Culkin’s Reactions To An Interviewer’s Michael Cera Comment Are Going Viral Again
“I think the interview is projecting his own insecurities here.”
Bored Panda
Bored Panda
Nicki Minaj Sued Over $275K Unpaid Concert Production Costs — Firm Claims Bills Ignored for Years
Nicki Minaj is embroiled in a legal battle as a production company claims she owes over $275,000 for concert production costs. The lawsuit highlights financial risks in the entertainment industry.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
Age Of Attraction Could Become My Love Is Blind Replacement, But It Needs To Fix Some Things
I can see a future but with many changes.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Weird Al Just Unexpectedly (And Brutally) Trolled The Rock’s Live Action Moana Wig
Ouch!
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
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