Brexit: Britain and EU fail to strike Brexit talks deal

The UK and EU have failed to reach an agreement to move to the next stage of Brexit talks, Theresa May has said.

The prime minister said talks would reconvene "before the end of the week" and she was "confident we will conclude this positively".

The talks are understood to have broken down after the Democratic Unionist Party refused to accept concessions on the Irish border issue.

Downing Street said that was not the only outstanding problem.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said a deal had been done, but the UK appeared to change its mind over the Irish border question after pressure from the DUP.

"I am surprised and disappointed that the British government now appears not to be in a position to conclude what was agreed earlier today," he told a press conference in Dublin.T

Read more: Britain and EU fail to strike Brexit talks deal - BBC News

EU-Brexit talks 'will not consume EU', Angela Merkel warns Britain - by Jennifer Rankin

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has warned Theresa May that the EU will not allow itself to be consumed by the Brexit negotiations, as the British prime minister’s offer on citizens’ rights was dismissed by Europe’s leaders as vague and inadequate.

Emerging from a two-day summit in Brussels, where the issues discussed ranged from tackling the spread of terrorist propaganda on the internet to plans for cooperation on defence, Merkel insisted that her priority was not the Brexit talks, but steering the EU to a better future.

In response to May’s offer on citizens’ rights after Brexit, she also warned that the UK and the EU had a “long way to go” if they were going to reach agreement on the issue.

In a symbolic joint press conference with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, Merkel said: “That was a good beginning, but – and I’m trying to word this very carefully – it was not a breakthrough.

Read more: Brexit talks 'will not consume EU', Angela Merkel warns Britain | Politics | The Guardian

Brexit Talks Brussels: Davis and Barnier hold press conference after first day of Brexit talks - by Andrew Sparrow

Brexit Negotiations get underway

The British newspaper The Guardian reports EU negotiator Michel Barnier said it will be up to the European council, led by Donald Tusk, to decide later if sufficient progress has been made on these issues to allow talks to move on to trade.

He said, in leaving the EU, Britain will no longer have the same rights and opportunities as EU members.

But the EU can build a new partnership with the UK, and that will contribute to stability on the continent.

He says “a fair deal is possible, and far better than no deal”.

The British negotiator David Davis said the talks were “very constructive”. He says a deal is “eminently achievable”.

Note EU-Digest: Britain is about to go down on its knees before Trump to beg for post Brexit trade access to the USA,  and is in no position to stand up to him and all his nonsensical "make America great again" ideology, as France, Germany and Italy have done, when they issued a powerful joint public statement against Trump policies. Bottom line, the best thing for Britain is to get back into the EU fold and face the global storm winds as a member of the EU. After all  - United we stand -Divided we fall.     

Read more: Davis and Barnier hold press conference after first day of Brexit talks - Politics live | Politics | The Guardian

Britain-Theresa May is a disaster Could Labour’s Corbyn Actually Win the British Elections? - by  Maria Margaronis

 This may be the strangest election of my lifetime. Called by Prime Minister Theresa May after she vowed repeatedly that she’d do no such thing, it seemed at first like an assured triumph for the Tories—and possibly the coup de grâce for Jeremy Corbyn’s divided and floundering Labour Party. But six days before the vote, the poll gap has shrunk from 22 points to an astonishing four, with some projections even predicting a hung Parliament.

Corbyn, seems to have found his voice. Always happier on the campaign trail than in Parliament, he comes across as direct, relaxed, and confident. The sanctimonious tinge has gone; so has the nervous pretense of being above the game. He’s being allowed to go for broke and campaign (for the most part) on what he believes. For the first time since the Blair era, the Labour manifesto makes a wholehearted argument against austerity. It promises to restore the welfare state through public investment in the health service, energy, and transport; universal childcare; and free university tuition—to be financed by reversing cuts to corporation taxes and raising taxes for those earning £80,000 or more. Zero-hours contracts will be banned. The minimum wage will go up to £10 an hour. Borrowing will fund a national investment bank for infrastructure development.

Note EU-Digest: Vote for Corbyn and make Britain really great again by rejoining the EU  

Read  more: Could Labour’s Corbyn Actually Win the British Elections? | The Nation

Britain: British views on Migration Classing With Those of The EU

Theresa May is driving a wedge between the UK and the EU on migration http://flip.it/m8gUBr