Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Theresa May’s press conference with the Irish PM and David Davis and Michel Barnier starting the Brexit negotiations in Brussels.
An opening session of talks, during which the UK’s Brexit secretary, David Davis, and the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, sat down together for the first time to formally negotiate terms of the UK’s withdrawal, started shortly after 10am UK time.
Barnier and Davis will scope out a timetable for the negotiations during the hour-and-a-half session, before taking an early “working lunch”.
In the afternoon, officials from both sides will spend some two-and-a-half hours in working groups responding to any agreement from the two principal negotiators, and working up a detailed plan.
The most senior officials coordinating the negotiations – Sabine Weyand, who is the European commission’s deputy chief negotiator, and Olly Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the EU – will also meet in the afternoon.
A closing session between Barnier and Davis will start at 5.30pm, before they again emerge to brief the world’s media at a press conference in the European commission’s Berlaymont building.
