Ministers go to Brussels for talks amid tuition fees standoff, almost 10 years after Britons voted to leave EU
This week is “Brexit reset” week for the British government, as ministers engage in a flurry of activity intended to highlight their determination to forge closer ties with Brussels almost 10 years after the country first voted to leave the EU.
On Monday, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister in charge of negotiating the government’s reset with the EU, will arrive in Brussels for a meeting of the joint EU-UK parliamentary partnership assembly. He travels mob-handed, to be joined by the Europe minister, Stephen Doughty, and the trade minister, Chris Bryant.
A day later, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will give her second Mais lecture to the finance industry, during which she will argue that closer alignment with the EU forms a central part of the government’s growth agenda.
But even as ministers put the finishing touches to their pro-European messages, a fresh row is breaking out over Brussels’s demand for lower university tuition fees for European students.
