UK's Brexit papers are not satisfactory, says European commission president – Politics live

Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happenFrances O’Grady’s Today interviewNo 10 lobby briefing – Summary 2.56pm BST At the Number 10 lobby briefing this morning the prime minister’s spokeswoman was unable to say why the government has not yet published a position paper on the amount the UK is willing to pay when it leaves the EU (see 12.27pm), despite this being one of the three issues up for negotiation in the current phase of the Brexit talks. (The government has published papers on 11 other issues.) But it didn’t matter, because all the reporters in the room knew the answer, or at least part of the answer. Ministers are worried about the public backlash.There is another factor; conceding now that the UK would be willing to give away £Xbn would involve sacrificing a key bargaining chip, and so there are sound reasons for not saying too much too soon. 1.46pm BST George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor who now edits the Evening Standard, is continuing to use Standard editorials to lambast Theresa May and her Brexit strategy. In today’s offering, the paper suggests Labour’s Brexit policy is now much credible than the government’s.Theresa May was elected Conservative leader because she offered a pragmatic compromise after the party was split down the middle on the EU referendum. She voted Remain, but said she understood the concerns of Leavers …The sensible, solid centre of the party, taking their cue from David Cameron, swung behind her and she saw off the challenge from the hard Brexit ideologues. The contrast with the Labour leadership battle a year earlier was striking. In that contest, Jeremy Corbyn had been anything but ambiguous in his hard-Left message. He won by bypassing the sensible centre in the parliamentary Labour party, not by co-opting it.TELEGRAPH: Britain’s fury at ‘unhelpful’ Barnier #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/n11VpvLrqDThe latest round of Brexit talks descended into open hostility as Michel Barnier sniped at Britain for “ambiguity” in its stance on the so-called “divorce bill” and lectured the UK to take the issue “seriously”.Senior sources close to the talks rounded on Mr Barnier, saying he was “stuck with a headache of his own making” over the Brexit bill because of suggestions that Britain should pay to leave the EU and continue to make payments for access to the single market during a transition period. “We are not going to pay twice,” said one source.Last night the British government described the principal EU negotiator, Michel Barnier, as “inconsistent, ill-judged, ill-considered and unhelpful” — an approach that is itself inconsistent with the stated plan to be generous towards the Europeans, ill-judged when Britain should be winning allies, ill-considered when one thinks how such remarks will be read in other capitals, and unhelpful coming from a Britain that needs these negotiations to work.This morning we saw the result of such an approach in Jean-Claude Juncker’s blistering response. The moment when brittle Brexit delusions will be shattered on the anvil of these negotiations is both being delayed and amplified by this whole testy, ideological approach. The government boasts its approach is based on “constructive ambiguity” — yet it is being neither constructive nor ambiguous. Continue reading…
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