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The big picture

Well, as numerous wags pointed out over the weekend – that escalated quickly. On Wednesday, as scheduled, Theresa May’s letter arrived in Brussels to formally trigger article 50, firing the starting gun on the two-year departure process from the EU.

By Sunday the talk was less of starting guns and more of gunboats, as an early minor hiccup in the process saw Lord Howard, one of May’s predecessors as Conservative leader, invoke the Falklands war to suggest sending a military taskforce to protect Gibraltar from Spain.

Of course, war was never really on the agenda, but the fuss reminded everyone very quickly about the number of obstacles the UK and the remaining 27 EU nations need to overcome to secure an amicable divorce package.

Wednesday’s big moment came at about 1.20pm Brussels time as Sir Tim Barrow, the UK’s envoy to the EU, handed Donald Tusk May’s six-page letter giving notice to quit and pledging to do so “constructively and respectfully, in a spirit of sincere cooperation”.



It took a matter of hours for May’s Brexit aspirations to collide with reality, as Angela Merkel dashed any hopes that talks on Brexit could run parallel with those on a future trade deal. Tusk later confirmed there would need to be progress on separation talks before trade could be broached.

Then came Gibraltar. At the weekend it emerged that the EU’s opening negotiating position for the Brexit talks predicates success on reaching agreement with Spain over the future of the much-disputed Rock, promoting Howard’s bullish stance.

“Someone in the UK is losing their cool and there’s no need for it,” said Spain’s foreign minister, Alfonso Dastis. Heads will cool. But it’s a reminder of the many complexities and potential tensions to come.

The view from Europe

While the more vehement Brexiters in London spent Wednesday cheering what they saw as “liberation” from the EU, Tusk took a notably more reflective stance addressing the press in Brussels.

“There is no reason to pretend that this is a happy day, neither in Brussels nor in London,” he said, brandishing May’s letter, becoming ever more mournful as he spoke. Tusk ended: “What can I add to this? We already miss you.”

In Spain, meanwhile, the Gibraltar issue began in part after politicians realised that May had failed even to mention the territory in her letter to Tusk.

Esteban González Pons, vice-chair of the European People’s party, told El País newspaper that this was “very relevant”, arguing that the omission was “because Gibraltar isn’t part of the United Kingdom; it’s a colony like the island of St Helena”.



This was, sources in the his party close to the Spanish government told the paper, a sign the issue was up for discussion.

Meanwhile, back in Westminster

If the Brussels action last week was a matter of encountering early difficulties, in Westminster it was more a case of May and her ministers seeking to gently deflate expectations.

May’s address to parliament announcing the handover of the letter was less ebullient than cautious – this would not be an easy process, she warned:

We understand that there will be consequences for the UK of leaving the EU. We know that we will lose influence over the rules that affect the European economy. We know that UK companies that trade with the EU will have to align with rules agreed by institutions of which we are no longer a part, just as we do in other overseas markets. We accept that.

If that wasn’t enough, in a BBC interview that evening, May stressed that Brexit might not mean immediately lower immigration figures, saying:

There are so many things in the world which affect the number of people coming to the UK.

With May off to Jordan and Saudi Arabia to work on some post-Brexit trade deals, it seems that not even parliament’s Brexit select committee of MPs can agree on its own work.

While a majority of members released a report on Monday saying there was no evidence to support May’s contention that leaving the EU without deal would be better than doing so with a bad deal, six pro-Brexit Conservative members refused to sign up to this.

You should also know

France is holding a second televised debate of presidential candidates on Tuesday. Here’s all you need to know.

The House of Commons Brexit committee said the government’s declaration that no deal was better than a bad deal was unsubstantiated. Several Tory MPs on the committee disowned it.

Brexit is proving an accelerant to a united Ireland with debate on a near-taboo subject now legitimised.

Tory voters want environmental regulations maintained after Brexit.

Spain told the UK not to lose its cool after former Tory leader Michael Howard suggested it might be the new Falklands/Malvinas.

Owen Jones says Brexit means cosying up to brutal regimes.

The International Monetary Fund has issued a stark warning that living standards will fall around the world unless governments act.

Read these

The Brexit crisis is an opportunity not to be wasted writes the Guardian’s economics editor, Larry Elliott.

The triggering of article 50 led to lots of commentary trying to capture the historical significance of the moment.

Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland asked on BBC Radio 4’s The Long View whether there were parallels with the golden Elizabethan age when traders reached beyond Europe to Africa after the queen was excommunicated from the Catholic church by the pope.



Sticking with the religious theme, historian Niall Ferguson went back further to the schism in Europe the 14th and 15th centuries when rival popes ruled from Avignon and Rome. That schism, as he pointed out, took 39 years to heal.



Historian Dan Snow, who recently produced a BBC series on the Battle of Hastings, said the nostalgia for past empires was misplaced:



Britain has always oscillated and yo-yoed with Europe. These attempts by the English, the British, to get around the geography of Europe and reach around the continent have ended up not working. Is Brexit a rejection of 950 years? In a way, yes, it’s a nativist rejection of foreign, supranational force, but ultimately it’s doomed to failure.

Guardian columnist Martin Kettle concluded that politically it was momentous, but that the nation wasn’t feeling it:

A version of the same resistance to continental encroachment that fired Henry VIII’s break with Rome 500 years ago has triumphed again. Out in the country, much as in 1973 or even 1534, people got on with life as usual. If they were delighted or anxious, they mostly didn’t show it. There were no crowds in the streets this time and no celebrations or protests to speak of either. People kept their feelings quiet. Trains ran. The stock market was unmoved. Rain came in from the west. As usual, a million people went to the doctor.

Not quite The Art of a Deal, but Brexit secretary David Davis once wrote his own management tablet which the Guardian recovered from the archives of the British library. Among the tips: “Do not make the first major concession, make piecemeal concessions with a declining concession pattern and keep all concessions low.”

Tweet of the week

Article 50 day brought all sorts of reactions, both joyful and aghast, but this caption for a photo of Larry the Downing Street cat was one of the best.