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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Brexit: May not compromising enough to make deal possible, say top MEPs - Politics live

Summary

  • Theresa May has given her most detailed account yet of the final UK-EU trade relationship she wants without antagonising either the harder or softer Brexit wings of the Conservative party. In fact, leading pro-European backbenchers have broadly welcomed what she said, while Tory Brexiters have also signalled that they are happy with her stance. In her speech May went further than ever before to acknowledge some downsides to leaving the EU. She also set out her proposals for a Brexit involving managed divergence, which would see the UK continuing to remain closely aligned with EU regulations in some areas after Brexit, but not in others. This would amount to the softest version of the hard Brexit that became inevitable when May committed the UK to leaving the single market and the customs union. Her ability to hold her party together could be seen as a masterly act of diplomacy and compromise. But, equally, it could be seen as evidence that she is still in cakeland, and refusing to make necessary choices. And there is little evidence that her artfully-constructed compromise will survive contact with the EU’s negotiating team. My colleague Anushka Asthana has more on the speech here.
  • Leading MEPs have said that May has not gone far enough to make a Brexit deal possible. (See 3.44pm.) And Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has given just a tepid welcome to the speech. (See 3.53pm and 4.02pm.) The Centre for European Reform says the EU will reject what May is proposing. This is from its director Charles Grant.

Theresa May’s speech was serious. It was good that she recognised that the UK faces trade-offs and will lose some access to the single market. But the EU will see her demands on goods, such as mutual recognition in some areas, and on services like finance and media, as cherry-picking. She assumes the EU will see the economic case for close relations governed by mutual rule-making – if only.

And this is from its deputy director, John Springford.

Theresa May is trying to find a Goldilocks trade deal. She wants to make parliament and the British courts sovereign, but also to protect UK-EU trade. So she has advanced a plan that the EU will not accept. Ultimately, the EU will say no to her suggestions for a very broad and deep free trade agreement, and we are heading for something much more economically damaging – unless she changes her red lines.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Theresa May giving her Brexit speech at the Mansion House in London.
Theresa May giving her Brexit speech at the Mansion House in London. Photograph: WPA Pool/Getty Images

Updated

Here is a round-up of some of the more interesting comment on the speech not already covered, mostly from journalists. Where people have posted a Twitter thread, I have just posted the first tweet. But if you click on it, you should be able to pull up the whole thread.

A thread from Alan Beattie, the FT’s European leader writer

A thread from Politico Europe’s Brexit correspondent, Charlie Cooper

From Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform

A thread from Peter Ricketts, former head of the Foreign Office

A thread from Politico Europe’s Tom McTague

A thread from Rupert Harrison, George Osborne’s former chief of staff

A thread from Alberto Nardelli, BuzzFeed’s Europe editor

From the Resolution Foundation’s Torsten Bell

A thread from the Times’s Sam Coates

From the anti-Brexit journalist Ian Dunt

From James Blitz in his FT Brexit briefing

Theresa May’s speech at Mansion House today was the most considered and conciliatory of the three set piece orations she has given on Brexit.

She was realistic, in a way she has not been before, about the trade- offs and compromises that the government will have to make as it tries to forge a deal with the EU. And the speech has already received a positive response from Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, who praised it for its “clarity.”

But on an initial read, it is hard to see how her words will help advance the second phase of Brexit negotiations. None of the fundamental concerns that the EU has raised about protecting the integrity of the single market have been allayed.

From the Guardian’s Jessica Elgot

Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister and deputy prime minister, has put out a statement welcoming Theresa May’s commitment to the Good Friday agreement and to avoiding a hard border.

Updated

Frances O’Grady, the TUC’s general secretary, says Theresa May is still not being honest with people about the impact of Brexit.

Nick Macpherson, former permanent secretary to the Treasury, wasn’t impressed.

Updated

This is from the Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent, James Crisp.

Updated

Open Britain, which is campaigning for a soft Brexit, has put out this statement from the Labour MP Peter Kyle.

This was supposed to be the speech that would finally provide detail about what the government actually wants. Instead, all we got was yet more vacuous slogans, yet more meaningless soundbites and yet more attempts to have our cake and eat it.

And Best for Britain, which is opposed to Brexit and is campaigning for a second referendum, has put out this from its CEO, Eloise Todd.

This speech today was a parade of platitudes and statements about how we need to stay close to Europe in area after area. You have to wonder: was this all worth it? The speech was nuts and bolts and no vision.

The worryingly blank board the prime minister stood behind is a metaphor for this government. Without any ideas and in desperate need of anything they can get through Jacob Rees-Mogg and the extremists on the right of her party.

An example of the Gordian knot that the prime minister is tangled up in is the European Medicines Agency, which she mentioned in her speech, which will no longer be in the UK after Brexit, but she wants the government to pay into it, have access to it, but lost jobs as she allowed its HQ to leave London. All this would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

Updated

Jeremy Corbyn has recorded a clip for the BBC, which you can watch here, giving his reaction to the speech. He said it provided “no clarity” and “no real sense of priorities”.

Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn Photograph: BBC

Updated

Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, who played a leading role in the remain campaign, has described the speech as “a pragmatic, realistic plan which gives us the basis for the next round of negotiations”. Davidson went on:

As she said, not everyone will get what they want out of those talks.

But the prime minister has made clear that she wants to construct a deal that delivers as much common ground as possible, respecting the result while also maintaining close ties with our friends and allies on the continent.

Updated

Here is some more political reaction to the speech.

From the Welsh first minister Carwyn Jones

From the former Lib Dem leader and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg

From Matthew Elliott, who was chief executive of the Vote Leave campaign

From the Labour MP and Open Britain backer Chuka Ummuna

From Stephen Hammond, a pro-European Tory who backs staying in a customs union with the EU

From the Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood

From the former Ukip MP Douglas Carswell

Here is a Guardian Opinion panel, with contributions from Polly Toynbee, Katy Balls, Maya Goodfellow and John Redwood, with verdicts on the May speech.

Updated

Sturgeon says May failed to explain how she will resolve contradictions in government's stance

Here is Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, on what May said. She says it was “bizarre” that May’s speech set out the reasons why the hard Brexit she is proposing is such a bad idea.

Jeremy Corbyn, or the minion who runs his Twitter account (as I put it earlier – see 11.36am), has tweeted a video response to May’s speech, which does not mention Brexit at all.

Updated

CBI says 'more needed to lift fog of uncertainty' despite some positive elements in May's speech

The CBI has welcomed some aspects of Theresa May’s speech. But, in a statement, its director general, Carolyn Fairbairn, says the government must do more to “lift the fog of uncertainty”.

We heard the strongest acknowledgment yet of what’s needed to get a good deal. A possible future role for the ECJ, membership of some EU agencies, willingness to take steps to guarantee a level playing field – these are all welcome softening of red lines. They will make a good deal more achievable.

But more is needed to lift the fog of uncertainty and we welcome the PM’s call to ‘get on with it’. This is all about delivery, with three top priorities.

Fairbairn is particularly critical of the government’s proposals for customs after Brexit, which she says “do not deliver”.

Updated

Stephen Kinnock, the pro-European Labour MP, says Theresa May’s speech overlooked the fact that many EU agencies do not have provision for the kind of third party participation May envisages in some cases.

Updated

Peter Foster, the Telegraph’s Europe editor, says Michel Barnier’s tweet (see 3.53pm) should be seen more as a threat than a compliment.

Heidi Allen, a pro-European Tory, says she is “greatly encouraged” by the speech.

Another Tory pro-European, Sarah Wollaston, has also welcomed it, but in a much more qualified manner.

Allen and Wollaston are among the few rebel Tories who have signed the amendment to the trade bill saying the UK should stay in a customs union after Brexit.

Updated

Barnier welcomes May's speech on grounds it provides 'clarity'

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has welcomed Theresa May’s speech on the grounds that it provides “clarity”.

He does not sound swept away with enthusiasm, but he is being positive.

Gerard Batten, the acting Ukip leader, isn’t satisfied with the speech. In a statement he said:

On many points of detail, to be fair, [May] appears to be going in the right direction, but not with the fortitude and speed that is required. Time is short to ensure the preparations are in place to ensure her promises, good promises that both parliament and most importantly the UK courts will have complete sovereignty in this country.

But it is clear that she isn’t actually a committed leaver with all her talk of regulatory alignment and continued membership of a slew of EU agencies and organisations.

Updated

Leading MEPs claim May still refusing to compromise enough to make Brexit deal possible

Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s lead Brexit spokesman, says he thinks there will be “little appetite” in the EU to sign up to what Theresa May is proposing.

Verhofstadt (a Belgian liberal) is in some respects Brussels’ answer to John Mann; he is always up for a pithy quote slagging off the Tory government. And he is also not quite as important in the process as some reports suggest; the European commission is in charge of the Brexit talks, not the parliament, although the parliament will have to agree it in the end.

But he is a mainstream, serious MP (as well as a former prime minister), and he is not the only figure in Brussels to criticise the speech. Manfred Weber, the German MEP and Angela Merkel ally who leads the centre-right European People’s party group in the European parliament (the biggest group), has tweeted this.

Verhofstadt is also leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group in the European parliament, the fourth biggest group. So the leaders of two of the biggest four groups in the parliament have criticised the speech.

Updated

Institute of Directors welcomes May's speech

Perhaps Theresa May has won back the Institute of Directors after their flirtation with Jeremy Corbyn? The IoD’s director general, Stephen Martin, has issued this response.

Business leaders will welcome the prime minister’s honest admission that negotiating the future UK-EU relationship will involve making difficult choices. The prime minister put forward an ambitious vision for this new partnership, both in terms of access and sectors. It is important that she explicitly referenced the need for binding commitments in areas such as state aid and competition policy, which the IoD has long called for. Her acknowledgment of the need for new labour mobility arrangements will also strike a positive chord with businesses.

On regulation, we are glad to see her refer to the importance of new cooperation mechanisms that will underpin the trust in each other’s regulatory frameworks. We look forward to the UK putting forward proposals that set out more clarity about how this would work. It was also welcome to hear an explicit reference to continued participation in EU regulatory agencies such as the European Medicines Agency.

But Martin also said he thought the transition might have to be extended.

We are keen for more details from the government on the timelines. It is important to stress that if the UK is doubling down on its unprecedented customs partnership model, HMRC have said it will take five years minimum to implement. That means businesses will need longer to adjust to new settings. We have long emphasised that businesses and government agencies need time to prepare for post-Brexit arrangements.

Updated

Nicky Morgan, the Conservative pro-European and one of the Tories who has signed an amendment to the trade bill saying the UK should stay in a customs union with the EU, has welcomed the speech.

The European Research Group, which represents about 60 Tories pushing for a hardish version of Brexit, liked the speech, the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope reports.

Updated

The Lib Dem leader, Sir Vince Cable, has criticised the speech, saying May has avoided tough decisions. He said:

Theresa May has once again prevaricated from making serious decisions about our future. Her speech outlined all the reasons why we should stay in the single market and customs union, but she will carry on regardless, driving us out to placate Brexiters in the cabinet .

May’s diminished authority is allowing Brexit extremists to neuter any chance she has at getting an acceptable deal for the UK.

Updated

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader and a key Brexiter, described the speech as “upbeat and clear” and called on the European commission to “stop playing games” and treat Britain as an equal partner. He told the Guardian:

It was a good speech – it covered all the key items about leaving the EU but also the single market and customs union and ruled out simply adopting other options such as Norway and Canada.

He said the prime minister wanted to secure a special relationship that seemed “reasonably and wholly achievable”. He went on:

There are negotiations to be done. It is now over to the commission but it is time for the commission to stop playing games and stop the megaphone and start negotiating as equal partners. Yes there are needs for compromises but on both sides.

He described the legal text of the withdrawal agreement – which included the possibility of Northern Ireland remaining in the customs union in a divide from the rest of the UK – as “absurd” and said the urgency now was to talk about trade as the border arrangements would flow from that.

Updated

DUP welcomes May's speech

Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, has welcomed the speech. She put out this statement:

The prime minister has set forward the basis upon which it would be possible to move forward. The issues facing both the United Kingdom and the European Union are of fundamental importance and it is vital that we achieve outcomes that are sustainable for the future.

I welcome the prime minister’s clear commitment that she will not countenance any new border being created in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland goods must have unfettered access to trade into Great Britain and the same must apply to Great Britain goods entering Northern Ireland. Indeed, it is particularly welcome that one of the ‘five tests’ is strengthening the union.

Securing a sensible outcome for everyone will require the EU27 to consider innovative solutions rather than rule out any proposal which has not been conceived in Brussels. As Michel Barnier himself has said, “the solution cannot be based on a precedent”.

Last August’s United Kingdom proposals were innovative but did not receive a fair hearing in many quarters. Those proposals can ensure there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after we exit the EU.

We want to see an outcome that protects the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom but one that also enables us to have a good trading relationship with our nearest neighbours.

Here is the customs paper (pdf) that Foster is referring to and that May mentioned extensively in her speech. Foster says it did not get a fair hearing, but the paper itself describes the “customs partnership” proposal it sets out as “an innovative and untested approach that would take time to develop and implement”.

Updated

Theresa May's speech - Snap summary

Here is a snap summary of top lines from the speech.

  • May conceded that the UK would have less access to the single market after Brexit. She said:

We are leaving the single market. Life is going to be different. In certain ways, our access to each other’s markets will be less than it is now. How could the EU’s structure of rights and obligations be sustained, if the UK – or any country – were allowed to enjoy all the benefits without all of the obligations?

As the TUC (see 11.47am) and Open Britain (see 1.10pm) have said, this contradicts what May was saying about Brexit last year.

  • She said the UK would have to make “binding commitments” to maintain EU regulatory standards in certain areas after Brexit.

The next hard fact is this. If we want good access to each other’s markets, it has to be on fair terms. As with any trade agreement, we must accept the need for binding commitments – for example, we may choose to commit some areas of our regulations like state aid and competition to remaining in step with the EU’s.

The UK drove much of the policy in this area and we have much to gain from maintaining proper disciplines on the use of subsidies and on anti-competitive practices.

Speaking with reference to her proposals for a new customs arrangement with the EU, May also said that the UK would not be able to lower regulatory standards on industrial goods after Brexit.

We recognise this would constrain our ability to lower regulatory standards for industrial goods. But in practice we are unlikely to want to reduce our standards: not least because the British public would rightly punish any government that did so at the ballot box.

  • She said the UK wanted to remain part of the European Medicines Agency, the European Chemicals Agency, and the European Aviation Safety Agency after Brexit.

We will also want to explore with the EU, the terms on which the UK could remain part of EU agencies such as those that are critical for the chemicals, medicines and aerospace industries: the European Medicines Agency, the European Chemicals Agency, and the European Aviation Safety Agency.

We would, of course, accept that this would mean abiding by the rules of those agencies and making an appropriate financial contribution.

  • She said the UK would not be part of the digital single market after Brexit.

On digital, the UK will not be part of the EU’s digital single market, which will continue to develop after our withdrawal from the EU. This is a fast evolving, innovative sector, in which the UK is a world leader. So it will be particularly important to have domestic flexibility, to ensure the regulatory environment can always respond nimbly and ambitiously to new developments.

  • She said EU legal decisions would continue to affect the UK after Brexit.

The second hard fact is that even after we have left the jurisdiction of the ECJ, EU law and the decisions of the ECJ will continue to affect us.

For a start, the ECJ determines whether agreements the EU has struck are legal under the EU’s own law – as the US found when the ECJ declared the safe harbour framework for data sharing invalid.

When we leave the EU, the withdrawal bill will bring EU law into UK law. That means cases will be determined in our courts. But, where appropriate, our courts will continue to look at the ECJ’s judgments, as they do for the appropriate jurisprudence of other countries’ courts.

  • She reaffirmed her commitment to having no hard border in Ireland after Brexit, but did not offer any new proposals as to how this might be achieved. Instead she referred to the two alternative proposals for customs arrangements with the EU set out in a government paper last summer. She did not say which of the two, a “customs partnership” or a “highly streamlined customs arrangement” she most favoured.
  • She strongly rejected EU claims that what the UK wants amounts to cherry picking.

The EU itself is rightly taking a tailored approach in what it is seeking with the UK. For example, on fisheries, the commission has been clear that no precedents exist for the sort of access it wants from the UK.

The fact is that every free trade agreement has varying market access depending on the respective interests of the countries involved. If this is cherry picking, then every trade arrangement is cherry picking.

Moreover, with all its neighbours the EU has varying levels of access to the single market, depending on the obligations those neighbours are willing to undertake.

What would be cherry picking would be if we were to seek a deal where our rights and obligations were not held in balance.

And I have been categorically clear that is not what we are going to do.

Updated

And the Q&A is now over.

I will post a snap summary shortly.

Q: [From a French journalist] Isn’t it time you told the truth, that there will be a border in Northern Ireland? Maybe a light border, but there will be a border.

May says she has been very clear; there will be no return to a hard border in Northern Ireland.

And she will maintain the common market of the UK, she says.

Q: [From a German journalist] Is Brexit worth it in the light of what you are saying today?

May says, if that was a question about whether the UK will think again, it won’t. She says the people took the decision. It is up to parliament to implement it, she says.

Unlike some politicians, she is being straight with people, she says.

Q: [From the Guardian’s Anushka Asthana] What happens if having a customs union is the best way to protect jobs and the economy, would that trump independence from EU laws?

May says she has set out her five tests. She thinks a customs arrangement is the way forward.

Q: [From the Mail’s Jason Groves] Are you telling your colleagues the UK will not get full autonomy over its laws after Brexit? And is this speech today your bottom line?

May says parliament will be sovereign. It will determine UK laws. But there are other countries that make agreements with other countries.

The European court of justice will still have a remit within the EU.

Q: [From the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn] What will you do if you do not get what you want? Is no deal still a possibility? And will you repeat that now?

Yes, says May. She says she has said on many occasions that no deal is better than a bad deal. But she is confident of reaching a deal.

Q: [From Sky’s Faisal Islam] Is the customs partnership option the favoured one? It was described as a blue skies option. And it was said it would take five years to implement.

May says the government has set out two options on customs. She says the UK and the Irish will sit down with the EU to discuss the details of this.

Q: [From ITV’s Robert Peston.] People voted to take back control. But today you are promising not to exercise the control you are taking back. So what was the point of Brexit?

May says people voted to take back control of money, borders and laws. That will happen. In some areas it will make sense to operate on the same basis as now. But the decision will be for parliament.

There will be commitments. But that happens in any trade deal, she says.

May's Q&A

Q: [From the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg] What you call hard facts could be seen as compromises, many of which were obvious months ago. Do you accept we cannot have it all? And what makes you think the EU will change its mind?

May says she thinks this is the best deal not just for the UK, but for the EU.

The EU itself has said it wants an ambitious relationship, she says.

May says the approach she has set out today would honour the referendum result.

And it would appeal to those who voted leave and remain.

Whatever deal is secured, the future of the UK is bright, she says.

She says she looks forward to discussing this with our European friends.

Although we are leaving the EU, we are all still European.

She says, as in any negotiation, no one will get everything they want.

There will be ups and down ahead, she says.

What will be remembered will be whether the UK and the EU reach and enduring solution.

She says both sides have a shared interest in getting this right. So let’s get on with it.

May says “bold and creative” thinking can lead to new agrements in a range of areas.

And, in the light of the rise of protectionism (she says this in a tone of voice that implies she is talking about President Trump) she says the EU and the UK can set an example on free trade.

May turns to transport.

And May says the UK does not want to be part of the single market for digital.

The UK is a world leader here, she says. It needs to be able to respond swiftly and flexibly to new developments.

May turns to energy. The UK would want broad energy cooperation with the EU, she says.

She says she wants a close association with Euratom.

May says broadcasting and financial services have not been covered in any free trade deals before.

On broadcasting, she says the UK provides 30% of the channels available in the EU.

We should explore creative options, she says.

On financial services, she says Philip Hammond, the chancellor, will say next week how financial services should be part of a deep and comprehensive partnership.

May says the UK is not looking for passporting.

May says the goal should be the ability to access each other’s markets.

May turns to services. She says the UK and the EU can break new ground with a better deal than ever before.

The UK does not want to discriminate against EU service providers in the UK.And it wants its fims to have the same access.

An appropriate labour mobility agreement should be struck, she says.

She says it would make sense to continue to recognise each other’s qualifications.

May says the UK is leaving the common fisheries policy.

But the UK and the EU will want to manage shared stocks, and negotiate mutual access and shared markets.

May says UK would not be able to lower standards for goods under her plans for UK-EU future trade

May says there also has to be an agreement on customs.

The EU has a customs union with some other countries.

But they involve them having to abide by the EU’s common external tariff.

That is not acceptable to the UK. It would mean the UK not having control of trade policy. Leave and remain voters would not accept that.

She says the UK set out two options in its customs paper last summer: a system allowing the UK to shadow EU tariffs; and a “highly streamlined customs arrangement” where both sides would agree to coordinate what they do, as well as measures for Northern Ireland.

May says 80% of North-South trade in Ireland is carried out by mico, small and medium-sized businesses. They could carry on as now.

And there could be trusted trader arrangements for larger firms.

Some of these ideas depend on technology, and trust and goodwill. But there are serious, she says.

Summing up, she says trade can be as frictionless as possible.

She says this would constrain the UK’s ability to lower standards for industrial goods. But the UK would not want to do this, she says.

  • May says UK would not be able to lower standards for goods under her plans for UK-EU future trade.

May says she will want to explore if the UK can remain part of agencies affecting medicines, chemical and the aerospace industries.

She says she accepts that could involve accepting EU rules.

Association membership would mean the UK being able to continue to supply its expertise, she says.

She says if the UK were an associate member, matters could be resolved in UK courts.

She says that in medicines the UK regulators assesses more new medicines than any other EU member state.

Updated

May is now talking about trade in goods.

She says the UK will make a commitment to high regulatory standards.

In some cases parliament will have the same regulations as the EU.

In others, it will want to do something different.

May rejects claim the UK is ‘cherrypicking’, saying all trade deals are bespoke

May says the EU takes different approaches in different trade deals.

The commission has been clear that no precedent exists for the kind of access it wants for fishing in British waters.

She says every trade agreement includes different types of access to markets.

If this is cherrypicking, then every trade arrangement is cherrypicking.

May says it would be cherrypicking if the UK wanted an unfair level of access. But it does not.

  • May rejects claim the UK is ‘cherrypicking’, saying all trade deals are bespoke.

Updated

May sums up the five points. They will be the foundations underpinning this new partnership, she says.

May sets out five principles to govern new trade relationship with EU

May says there must be five principles behind a new relationship.

First, there must be “reciprocal and binding commitments to ensure fair and open competition”.

Second, there must be “an arbitration mechanism” that is completely independent.

Third, there will have to be an ongoing dialogue and means of consultation.

Fourth, there will have to be an agreement on data protection.

And, fifth, the EU and the UK must maintain the links between their people.

Updated

May says the UK and the EU need to look beyond the precedents and find a new balance.

She says they must get beyond the transactional, and get something better.

She says she wants the “broadest and deepest possible partnership”.

Updated

May says the UK and the EU must accept this is a negotiation.

Neither of us can have exactly what we want.

May says the EU has said the only option available to the UK is an off-the-shelf model.

But it has also said it is committed to an ambitious deal.

A Canada deal would not count, she says.

May says UK will make binding commitments for regulations to remain in step with EU ones in some areas

May says, in some areas, the UK will make binding commitments for regulations to remain in step with EU ones.

  • May says UK will make binding commitments for regulations to remain in step with EU ones.

She suggests the UK will remain committed to state aid rules.

And there will be no race to the bottom in the UK, she says.

May says that after Brexit, cases will be decided in UK courts.

But European court of justice decisions will still be taken into account.

Updated

May says Brexit will reduce access to the single market in some respects

May says existing models do not provide a way forward.

She wants to set out some hard facts.

In some ways, there will be less access to the single market than now.

  • May says Brexit will reduce access to the single market in some respects.

Updated

May says the Florence speech set out problems with the Norway or Canada models for a relationship with the EU.

She turns to Northern Ireland.

Successive British governments have worked to bring about peace in Ireland. Upholding the Belfast agreement will be at the heart of the government’s approach.

She says it is not surprising the Brexit vote has caused “anxiety” in the Irish Republic.

She says the UK will not introduce a hard border. But it cannot just say it is the EU’s job to find a solution. She says the UK, Ireland and the EU will work to find a solution.

She says it would be unacceptable to break up the UK common market.

She says she will not let Brexit set back the historic progress in Northern Ireland.

Updated

May says both sides should turn all their attention to considering the new relationship.

But the UK has to set out what it wants.

In Munich last month, May outlined what she wants from the security partnership. Today, she will set out what she wants from the economic partnership.

Updated

May says we are now at a crucial moment in the talks.

There is no escaping the complexity of the task ahead of us.

She says the government is making “real progress”.

The key elements of the withdrawal were agreed last year.

The government expressed its concerns about the draft text of the withdrawal treaty published by the EU on Wednesday. But it is committed to the joint report agreed in December.

Updated

May says she will apply five tests to the Brexit deal.

This is the passage briefed in advance. See 10.11am.

May says she is here to set out her vision for a future economic partnership with the EU.

She has listened to many views.

But she wants to start by looking back. She refers to the pledge she made in her speech in Downing Street when she became PM, saying the government would act in the interest of working people, not the elite few.

She says, as we leave the EU, we will forge a bold, new role in the world. We will make a country that works “not for the privileged few”, but for everyone.

Theresa May is speaking now.

She starts by thanking everyone “going the extra mile to help people” at this time of severe weather.

Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has turned up for the speech.

This is from my colleague Anushka Asthana.

The Sun’s Nick Gutteridge doesn’t like the backdrop.

He is referring to the Florence speech, where something similar happened.

This is from the FT’s Sebastian Payne.

This is from the BBC’s Nick Eardley.

1922 committee meeting don’t normally end up looking like that ...

Theresa May's speech

Theresa May is due to start her speech very soon.

She is at the Mansion House in London.

Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, is going to miss the speech, ITV’s Robert Peston reports.

Open Britain accuses government of making six implausible Brexit promises

Open Britain, the group campaigning for a soft Brexit, has identified six government Brexit promises that it thinks are incompatible with Theresa May’s Brexit policy and her determination to take the UK out of the single market and the customs union. It has set them out in an open letter to her signed by Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, Caroline Lucas, the co Green party leader, and Chuka Umunna, the Labour MP.

Here is an extract.

Since the referendum, you and your ministers have made a number of promises about our future trading relationship with the EU:

1 - The exact same benefits as today

2 - No hard border on the island of Ireland or across the UK

3 - Fully negotiated by March 2019

4 - No payment for access to the EU market

5 - A complete end to EU rules and regulations

6 - Continuation of all EU trade deals and new deals ready to come into force

Listed below are the promises made by you and your ministers, in your own words.

We have grave doubts as to whether these six promises can be delivered, and we do not believe they are all desirable. But they are the commitments against which your speech tomorrow will be judged. If you back away from them everybody has the right to ask whether the reality of Brexit matches up to what has been promised.

You can read the full text of the letter here. It includes helfpul notes showing who made these six questionable promises, and when.

Tory Brexiter Theresa Villiers says she expects to find some of speech 'uncomfortable'

Theresa Villiers, the former Northern Ireland secretary and leading Vote Leave campaigner, has said she expects to find some of Theresa May’s speech “uncomfortable”, the BBC reports.

In the light of what Chris Grayling was saying this morning, and the briefing the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg was getting yesterday (see 9.20am), this looks a bit like an attempt to break it gently to the Brexiters that they may not like everything they hear.

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, is speaking in Berlin today. As the BBC’s Adam Fleming reports, he started with a jibe at Theresa May.

The Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte with Theresa May when he visited London last week.
The Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte with Theresa May when he visited London last week. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Rex/Shutterstock

UPDATE: Good riposte from the Economist’s Tom Nuttall.

Updated

My colleague Rafael Behr has written a column arguing that EU leaders will find it difficult trusting Theresa May in the Brexit talks because they know that she is constrained by the hard Brexiters in her party. Here’s an extract.

The patterns of recent Tory history are familiar to May’s counterparts in the Brexit talks. They probably have a clearer-sighted understanding of them than she does. This matters because May’s pitch to the EU is that she can be trusted to uphold the values of the European project even while quitting its institutions. She offers “deep and special partnership” on matters of security and economic cooperation. She rejects the suggestion that Britain seeks to undercut its continental neighbours by dropping labour standards and environmental protections. She promises a post-Brexit partnership “based on high standards”. So May invites her EU counterparts to be generous and cooperative on the basis that she is an ally – aligned and equivalent in values if not exactly identical in regulations.

But even if the rest of the EU accept that May is sincere, they know she is weak. They know there is a section of the Tory party that is implacably hostile to the European project. That faction saw a regulatory bonfire as Brexit’s primary purpose. Some fantasised about a great unravelling of the union as a happy side-effect. That hostility is not a secret and the EU cannot ignore it. They have followed British history enough to know which side tends to win tugs of war between Tory leaders and Eurosceptic backbenchers. They knew where power lies in that party.

The reports this morning about how cabinet Brexiters forced May to drop a line in the speech about making “binding” commitments to align with EU rules in some areas after Brexit reinforce the argument that Rafael is making. “Binding” has reportedly been replaced with “strong”. (See 11.03am.) But EU leaders might reasonably conclude that, if a commitment is not “binding”, it is not actually a commitment in the first place.

In this context, it is worth pointing out the Michael Gove, the environment secretary and leading cabinet Brexiter, argued in a Telegraph article last year (paywall) that, if a future government did not like the Brexit deal, it could always change it. He said:

The British people will be in control. By the time of the next election, EU law and any new treaty with the EU will cease to have primacy or direct effect in UK law. If the British people dislike the arrangement that we have negotiated with the EU, the agreement will allow a future government to diverge.

That was both a statement of the obvious (governments don’t bind their successors) and a hint that, if Brexiters don’t like the eventual deal, they will reserve the right to seek to change it at a later date.

Open Britain, which is campaigning for a soft Brexit, has sent some unfortunate volunteer to the Theresa May speech venue in central London to make a point about the impossibility of being able to eat cake, but have it at the same time. (See 9.20am.)

(Hope the poor chap doesn’t have to stand out there until 1.30.)

ITV’s political editor Robert Peston says in a Facebook post that Theresa May’s speech might be coming too late. Here’s an extract.

The twin big fear that she - and the rest of us - will have is whether her plan has come too late to significantly influence the rest of the EU and has been shaped too much by what holds her cabinet and party together, rather than what EU leaders would see as a sensible starting point for talks.

In other words, the risk is that when EU leaders announce the negotiating guidelines for trade talks in just three weeks, these will reflect the Barnier/Tusk entente that - because of May’s red lines on the ECJ, migration, the right to negotiate third-party trade deals, and so on - the best the UK should get is a shallow and narrow free trade deal, modelled on Canada’s.

For reference, here is the slide that Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, is fond of brandishing which shows why he thinks May’s red lines mean a Canada-style deal is the only one realistically available.

EU slide showing why UK red lines point to Canada-style trade deal
EU slide showing why UK red lines point to Canada-style trade deal Photograph: EU

UPDATE: Ukip have responded to Peston.

Updated

Here is Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, on the prime minister’s speech.

O’Grady is referring to something that Theresa May said on 29 March last year, the day she triggered article 50. This is what she told Andrew Neil in an interview.

What we’re both looking for is that comprehensive free trade agreement which gives that ability to trade freely into the European single market.

And for them - and for them to trade with us. It will be a different relationship, but I think it can have the same benefits in terms of that free access to trade.

This is from Sky’s Faisal Islam.

Theresa May (or the minion who does it on her behalf) has been tweeting this morning about the weather.

Brexiters 'force May to drop ''binding" commitment to align from Brexit speech', reports claim

According to some reports, at the last minute Theresa May dropped a line in the speech promising to make “binding” commitments to mirror EU regulations after Brexit in certain areas. Brexiter ministers objected, and now the speech will just promise “strong” commitments instead.

The Times (paywall) reports:

Objections from pro-Brexit cabinet ministers mean that a promise to make “binding commitments” to mirror EU rules in some sectors has been dropped, The Times understands.

Greg Clark, the business secretary, and Philip Hammond, the chancellor, had argued in a cabinet meeting that the phrase was needed to provide businesses with the certainty they required to remain in the UK. David Davis, the Brexit secretary, and Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, argued that the phrase implied that the UK accepted the EU’s legal framework in those areas. Other Brexiteers such as Michael Gove argued that it would make it unnecessarily hard to negotiate.

Mrs May will now promise “strong commitments” and frame her appeal to Brussels in terms of five tests that any deal must meet.

And the Financial Times (paywall) reports:

Boris Johnson, foreign secretary, and David Davis, Brexit secretary, argued against a line in Mrs May’s draft speech that spoke of a “binding commitment to align” in certain sectors.

Greg Clark, business secretary, and Philip Hammond, chancellor, have argued that Britain should accept EU rules in sectors with long supply chains or with complex regulations — including a role for EU agencies and the European Court of Justice. They have also proposed that heavily regulated sectors such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and aviation should also continue to operate under the EU regulators, arguing there is no sense in Britain adopting a parallel regime.

But officials briefed on the cabinet talks say that Brexiters balked at the idea, which they feared suggested Britain would stay under EU rules forever in certain sectors. “They place a great importance on having the right to diverge,” said one. Downing Street said “constructive suggestions” were made for amendments to the draft speech and deny there was a row. A compromise text spoke of a “strong commitment” to align.

Boris Johnson leaving Number 10 yesterday after the cabinet meeting held to discuss May’s speech.
Boris Johnson leaving Number 10 yesterday after the cabinet meeting held to discuss May’s speech. Photograph: Mark Thomas/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

My colleague Jennifer Rankin, the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent, has posted an interesting Twitter thread on EU Brexit tactics. It starts here.

Sturgeon says May must move beyond 'vacuous, meaningless rhetoric'

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, is not impressed by the overnight Downing Street briefing. She posted this comment about a tweet setting out the May “five tests”. (See 10.11am.)

May's five tests for the Brexit trade talks

Downing Street released some extracts from Theresa May’s speech overnight. Mostly they focused on the “five tests” she will set out that she says will guide her when she is negotiating a future trade relationship with the EU.

For the record, here is the key passage.

First, the agreement we reach with the EU must respect the result of the referendum. It was a vote to take control of our borders, laws and money. And a vote for wider change, so that no community in Britain would ever be left behind again. But it was not a vote for a distant relationship with our neighbours.

Second, the new agreement we reach with the EU must endure. After Brexit both the UK and the EU want to forge ahead with building a better future for our people, not find ourselves back at the negotiating table because things have broken down.

Third, it must protect people’s jobs and security. People in the UK voted for our country to have a new and different relationship with Europe, but while the means may change our shared goals surely have not – to work together to grow our economies and keep our people safe.

Fourth, it must be consistent with the kind of country we want to be as we leave: a modern, open, outward-looking, tolerant, European democracy. A nation of pioneers, innovators, explorers and creators. A country that celebrates our history and diversity, confident of our place in the world; that meets its obligations to our near neighbours and far off friends, and is proud to stand up for its values.

And fifth, in doing all of these things, it must strengthen our union of nations and our union of people.

We must bring our country back together, taking into account the views of everyone who cares about this issue, from both sides of the debate. As prime minister it is my duty to represent all of our United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; north and south, from coastal towns and rural villages to our great cities.

Heseltine says some Tories would rather have Corbyn in power than back May's Brexit policy

The Conservative former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine was also on the Today programme this morning. He encouraged pro-European Tories to rebel against Theresa May over Brexit. Here are the key points.

  • Heseltine said some Tories would rather have Jeremy Corbyn in power than back May’s policy on Brexit. When asked whether pro-European Tory MPs should vote for the UK to stay in the customs union even if that risked bringing down May, he replied:

I say to them: in the end you are in politics for what you believe to be right, and you have got to put your personal convictions [first].

When pressed on whether he would be happy for this to happen even if it led to Corbyn being in power, he went on:

Look, I hate the idea of Jeremy Corbyn in power. I don’t have a vote [as a member of the House of Lords], which is a cop-out answer, I know that. But the real world is that there are an increasing number of people, particularly the young people, and by that I mean under 40, who today think that Corbyn is an alternative they can live with. And there are Conservatives who feel so strongly about the European issue that they would rather risk the short-term damage of a Corbyn government, and let’s not under-estimate that, than to see Britain make this calamitous mistake of leaving Europe.

Heseltine said that he had defied the Tory whip three times in his career, over race relations, the poll tax and Europe. In each case the Conservative party eventually ended up adopting the stance he took, he said.

  • He said there was no majority in parliament for the kind of Brexit May wanted.

The fact is that the prime minister has no majority for the sort of deal that is being talked about and the only way to resolve this is to go back, I would hope to parliament, but if not to parliament then to a referendum.

  • He said that public opinion was turning against Brexit.

If you look at the polling situation, you can see now that the opposition to Brexit is now beginning to move ahead whereas earlier on there was support for it.

He also said that Labour’s decision to commit to staying in a customs union for good showed that it was responding to changing public opinion.

Heseltine is right about public opinion, although the polling uptick he refers to is slight, rather than significant. This chart, from What UK Thinks, show how the figures have changed when people have been asked in polls how they would vote on EU membership.

Brexit polling
Brexit polling Photograph: What UK Thinks

The polling expert John Curtice addressed this very question in a blog for the What UK Thinks website about a month ago. He wrote:

There appears to be consistent evidence across a number of poll series that what until the middle of last year was still a small majority in favour of leaving the EU has now become a small majority for remaining. That said, we have to sound the warning that, with the polls as close as they mostly are, nobody can be sure that there would be a different outcome if another referendum were held now. After all, most (though not all) of the polls conducted immediately before the EU referendum had Remain narrowly ahead, yet in the event it was Leave that prevailed.

  • Heseltine denied suggestions that pro-Europeans like himself, Major and Tony Blair were coordinating their efforts against the government.
Michael Heseltine
Michael Heseltine Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

Theresa May to use her Brexit speech to say 'we can't have everything', Grayling says

One of the most persistent, and fair, criticisms of the government’s Brexit policy is that ministers have been unwilling to admit that leaving the EU won’t be a universally positive experience. Theresa May has so far given three major Brexit speech - the Tory conference one in 2016, which firmly ruled out a soft Brexit; Lancaster House, which confirmed that, and announced a transition and a vote in parliament; and Florence, which proposed a standstill transition and promised payments to the EU - but none of them had anything much to say about the potential downsides of the policy she is implementing. Broadly ministers have adopted the line taken by the leave campaign in the EU referendum, and suggested that the UK will be able to leave the regulatory burdens of the single market while retaining almost all of its benefits. Boris Johnson famously used to say his policy on cake was being to have it and eat it, but to many it appears his cavalier joke has been elevated to the status of government policy. He has also gifted something to the English language; amongst Brussels bureaucrats, “cake” has become slang for an unrealistic or impossible demand.

Today it is just possible that might change. May will give her fourth major Brexit speech and, according to Chris Grayling, the Brexiter transport secretary, who was doing the media round this morning, she will tell the public that “we can’t have everything” when we leave the EU. He told the programme.

I think the prime minister will recognise in the speech today that it is not about cherry picking, that we can’t have everything that we might like to have because we are leaving.

This backs up the briefing given to the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg, who in a blog about the speech says a minister told her it would feel like May “being honest with the public” and delivering “hard truths”.

The speech is due to start at 1.30pm. I will be covering the build-up, reporting what May says at length, and then bringing you the best and most interesting reaction and analysis.

Here is our overnight preview story.

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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