Please see below for today’s update on key Brexit news items:
- “Trade realities expose the absurdity of a Brexit ‘no deal’“, the FT reports. The article cites a recent World Bank study which argues that if the UK shifted from EU to WTO terms, trade in goods with the EU would halve and trade in services would fall 60 per cent. Financial Times
- The UK pharmaceutical sector has been told to prepare for a “crisis” Brexit scenario of drastically reduced access to European markets and hundreds of millions of pounds of restructuring costs unless a swift regulatory deal can be struck with Brussels. In a paper detailing how firms should prepare for Brexit, the European Medicines Agency advised UK-based pharma companies to move hundreds of roles and functions to an EU member state ahead of Brexit in order to maintain their existing rights to sell medicines in the common market. The Telegraph
- Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May have outlined opposing strategies in terms of negotiating a Brexit deal. Labour has confirmed that walking away from Brexit negotiations if EU demands become too onerous would be “absurd” and that “there is no such thing as a no deal”, whilst Theresa May has reconfirmed her stance that “no deal is better than a bad deal”. The Guardian.