Brexit talks 'on course' and will begin next week : Theresa May

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday that the timetable for Brexit remained "on course" and talks would begin next week.

Speaking at a press conference in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron, May said that despite her ongoing negotiations to form a government "the timetable for the Brexit negotiations remains on course and will begin next week.
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The UK is in the midst of a national nervous breakdown

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What a mess. Just when you thought that the governing class could do no more to fail in their custodianship of Britain’s political settlement, it surprises us all. And let’s not forget the role of “the people” in creating the current impasse.

The result of the UK general election has made it clear that the nation – the people, the politicians, the media, everyone – have surpassed themselves.

Theresa May, the prime minister, chose to go to the country in order to create “unity” in parliament and unite the country behind her diamond-hard Brexit strategy. That has not happened. The result reveals a country still divided along the lines of age, education, income and geography. Any hopes that people were coming back together after the division and unhappiness of last year’s Brexit referendum have been dashed. And, having squandered a working majority in parliament, May now seems prepared to put the whole Northern Irish peace process at risk in order to struggle on in a minority government with the help of the Democratic Unionist Party.

May’s arrogance and hubris may be the immediate cause of these troubles but what we are seeing now is the effect of many chickens coming home to roost. The UK is the creation of armed force, global expansion, and the projection of power around the world. It was the beating heart of a great empire that brought enormous wealth for the few and knitted a people together in a shared identity. That identity was underpinned by military prowess, material progress and a belief in the superiority of UK institutions, with a centralisation of power in one of the world’s great cities, London.

Today, the empire is long gone and so has the shared belief in the UK and what it means. The military prowess is not what it was, the nation’s material progress has been eclipsed by that of its trading partners, and the belief in the superiority of UK institutions has taken a battering.

Many of the drivers of this decline go back over a century but more recently to the impact of Thatcherism. Labour’s well-intentioned but ultimately fudged programme of devolution and constitutional reform has also driven the constituent nations of the UK apart.

In Northern Ireland, the Troubles may have ended but there is no agreement on the future of the province and a significant minority of its population wants to leave the UK. Despite the most recent electoral setbacks, it’s also only a matter of time before the Scottish National Party finds the opportunity to restage 2014’s independence referendum. And while there is currently no significant support for independence in Wales, Plaid Cymru pushes a strong cultural nationalist message that has been taken up by many in Welsh Labour as well.
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Post-Brexit trade deal: No talks before UK settles what it owes, says EU

European Union governments agreed a common Brexit negotiating plan on Monday and renewed their insistence that they would not open talks on a post-Brexit trade deal until London agrees to settle what it owes the Union.

Ministers from the 27 other EU states met in Brussels to sign off on a common strategy and mandate the EU executive, in the form of chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, to launch talks on their behalf after Britain's June 8 election. The strategy and mandate were adopted unanimously, officials said.

Barnier said he expected to sit down with British officials for the first time in the week starting Monday, June 19, and to report to EU leaders on the talks during a summit on June 22-23, exactly a year since Britons shocked the Union by voting to leave in a referendum on June 23, 2016.

Several ministers stressed their priorities are to provide legal clarity for EU citizens in Britain before they find themselves living outside the EU in March 2019 and to agree how to calculate what London owes Brussels before departure.

The Union's leaders agreed last month on a phased structure of talks, under which the free trade agreement which British Prime Minister Theresa May wants with the EU would only be discussed after a first phase of talks makes "significant progress" on issues such as citizens' rights and the budget.

"It's clear that in this matter, on the finance issue, if we get stuck then we will not get onto 'phase two', what should come afterwards between the European Union and Great Britain," Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said on arrival.

His Dutch counterpart Bert Koenders told reporters: "It's very British to know that if you're part of a club and then you leave you have to settle your accounts."

Deal or No Deal

Barnier's British counterpart, Brexit Secretary David Davis, told a weekend newspaper that his threat to walk out without a deal with the EU was serious. Barnier said that was "not my option" and he did not want to think about such an outcome, which EU officials say would create a chaotic legal limbo.
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