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Theresa May is set to reshuffle her Cabinet this week and while the big jobs are expected to remain unchanged, there could be some Brexit clues in the leadership moves.
The Telegraph reports that May will appoint a “minister for no deal”—someone charged with preparing for the messy scenario in which March 2019 rolls around and the European Union and U.K. haven’t reached a divorce agreement.
The official would attend Cabinet but wouldn’t have the rank of secretary of state. Instead, the person would be in Brexit Secretary David Davis’s department, according to the newspaper. It would be a gesture to the ardent Brexit-backers who want to make sure May doesn’t go soft in the last months of the exit negotiations.
Brexit supporters have long urged May to be ready to walk away from a bad deal, and contingency planning is needed to make the threat of a walkout more credible. It’s an opportunity to promote a Brexit-backer as she seeks to maintain balance in her Cabinet. But it will probably create even more tension with figures such as Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, who has been reluctant to commit funds for contingency planning before they are needed.
Calls on May to leave the EU without a deal are likely to grow this year as it becomes clear that the exit agreement won’t include much detail on the future relationship, and lawmakers and voters will wonder what the U.K. is getting in return for its £40 billion exit bill. While the U.K. maintains it wants the whole deal completed by exit day, the EU side has been clear it doesn’t think that’s possible. It isn’t clear whether a simple statement of intent on a future relationship will be legally binding.
On Sunday, May reiterated that “by the time we leave the European Union, we want to have agreed what the future relationship between us and the European Union is going to be.” And she said UK lawmakers would get a vote on the withdrawal agreement before the European Parliament does.
Britain is seeking to remain under EU regulations for medicines after it leaves the bloc, the Financial Times reports. Three senior government figures told the paper that the U.K. wants to be regulated by the European Medicines Agency, which is moving from London to Amsterdam because of Brexit.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has pledged to fight “as fiercely as possible” against efforts in London to leave the single market and customs union as part of Brexit. She warned that independence must remain an option for Scotland if the country is to be “torn out of the world’s biggest single market against our democratic will,” the Telegraph reports.
Most UK exports and imports are goods and services that help produce a finished good elsewhere, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. “It is increasingly the case that countries’ exports embody imports from abroad, whether in the form of imported raw materials, components or business services,” the IFS said. Nearly 70 percent of the UK’s exports to the EU are intermediate goods.
Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, one of the leaders of the Brexit campaign, meets chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels on Monday. He invited people to submit questions on Twitter.
After a dismal Christmas trading report by department store Debenhams last week, credit-card company Visa says spending fell an annual 1 percent in December, a seventh decline in eight months. The drop, reflecting an inflation squeeze that ate into disposable incomes, rounds off the worst year for UK spending since 2012.
With the UK Parliament returning from recess and a slew of data coming out, investors will be looking to put on fresh sterling positions, according to Neil Jones, head of currency sales at Mizuho Bank Ltd. Despite lingering Brexit uncertainty and a mixed economic picture, banks including Nomura International Plc and ING Groep NV have bullish calls on sterling, writes Charlotte Ryan.
The post-Brexit trade deal that US President Trump has said he will offer the UK could be in danger if the president isn’t invited to the royal wedding this year, according to the author of “Fire and Fury,” an account of the first year of the Trump White House. Michael Wolff told the Mail on Sunday that Trump would feel snubbed if he doesn’t get invited to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s bash. Trump’s team has described the book as “fantasy.” (Bloomberg)
