I’m not writing my usual blog today but here, as an alternative, is the Politics Live readers’ edition. It is a place for you to discuss today’s politics, and to share links to breaking news and to the most interesting stories and blogs on the web.
Feel free to express your views robustly, but please treat others with respect and don’t resort to abuse. Guardian comment pages are supposed to be a haven from the Twitter/social media rant-orama, not an extension of it.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
And here are some of the main ones on our site this morning.
- The European Union is ready to talk to Britain on a future free-trade deal before the two sides agree final terms on Brexit, draft EU negotiating guidelines issued on Friday show.
- The British government has embarked on a desperate attempt to calm a potential diplomatic row sparked by its article 50 letter, assuring European capitals it had not intended to threaten EU security cooperation.
- Nicola Sturgeon has tweeted a photograph of herself working on an official letter asking Theresa May for powers to hold a fresh independence referendum for Scotland.
- Government plans to create temporary powers to let ministers amend thousands of laws in the wake of Brexit have been condemned as a “sweeping” executive power grab, despite David Davis insisting any such changes would be technical.
- Patients will face longer delays for operations after the NHS decided to shelve one of its most important waiting time targets as part of its ambitious survival plan, which will also result in hundreds of thousands of people being denied surgery.
On Thursday nights local council byelections normally take place. But last night there weren’t any.
No council by-elections tonight.#BritainDoesNotElect
— Britain Elects (@britainelects) March 30, 2017
