Brexit Bulletin: Passport to progress

Good afternoon.

Theresa May might have expected today to be a moment of Brexit triumph as she catches up with her European counterparts in Brussels, where they are set to approve the terms hammered out by negotiators of Britain’s transition out of the EU. Instead, she has been embroiled in a row about who is making the passports Brexit Britain will have. The boss of the British firm which is set to lose out to a Franco-Dutch company on a contract to make the new iconic blue passport has been demanding answers from the Government, telling Radio 4’s Today programme that “this icon of British identity is going to be manufactured in France”.

Many Brexiteers feel for the De La Rue chief. “This sorry episode demonstrates the need to break free from Brussels rules,” Leo McKinstry concludes. In the Government’s defence, the competing bids were assessed as part of a blind tender process, so the nationality of the firm behind each bid could not be known. The key factor will have been cost.

The Culture Secretary Matt Hancock suggested that the procurement process could be reversed as it is “not fully complete”. But there are risks in ministers changing the winner. “If we abandon the principles of competitive free markets and free trade on a whim, global Britain will fall at the first hurdle,” warns Allie Renison from the Institute of Directors.

The Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto will save ministers £120 million, but the political symbolism - having an EU firm make the passports Britons will have after leaving - could be costly.

The Prime Minister can expect European leaders to formally “welcome” the latest progress in the Brexit talks, under the encouragement of Donald Tusk, but the European Council president made clear that he didn’t think any better of Britain’s departure. “In practice, the transition phase will allow to delay all the negative consequences of #Brexit by another 21 months”, he tweeted ahead of the summit.

Elsewhere in Brussels, Vince Cable has been meeting fellow European liberals. The Liberal Democrats claim their leader has persuaded eight EU prime ministers to "acknowledge and support" his party’s call for a second referendum, ranging from Danish PM Mark Rutte to Czech premier Andrej Babis. That would be a quite a coup, except Europe’s liberal leaders have disowned the Lib Dems’ announcement, which diplomats are letting it be known they viewed with “ utter astonishment”.

Dr Cable’s attempt to upstage Mrs May is falling flat, so that leaves the stage for the Prime Minister to make the most of getting the transition in the bag.