Brexit

BBC News wrote:Facebook is opening a new London office that will allow it to create 800 new UK jobs in 2018.

By the end of next year about 2,300 people will work for the social media company in the UK.

The office will be Facebook's biggest engineering hub outside the US, and opens during its tenth year in the UK.

Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook's Europe, Middle East and Asia vice-president, said the company was "more committed than ever to the UK".

She said Britain's "entrepreneurial ecosystem and engineering excellence" made it an ideal location for technology firms.

The seven-floor building at Rathbone Place, near Oxford Circus in central London, was designed by Frank Gehry, the architect best known for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.

It will accommodate engineers and developers as well as marketing and sales teams.

The building will also house a dedicated incubator space for start-ups rather than babies, called LDN-LAB.

Julian David of techUK, which represents 950 technology firms in the UK, welcomed a world-leading company such as Facebook investing in London despite the uncertainties surrounding Brexit.

Chancellor Philip Hammond said Facebook's decision to expand in London was a "sign of confidence" in Britain.

"The UK is not only the best place to start a new business, it's also the best place to grow one," he added.

twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/937641775467986944

bear wrote:

twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/937641775467986944

If that's right then May is calling the DUPs bluff on their threat to withdraw support.

bear wrote:

twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/937641775467986944

If that's right then May is calling the DUPs bluff on their threat to withdraw support.

Laura Kuenssberg, BBC wrote:Belgian MEP who has seen agreement tells us draft text of today’s deal includes concession from UK on Irish border - in ‘paragraph 48’ - ‘the pie is almost ready’ he says.

UK poised to accept no regulatory divergence between North and South - MEPs saying draft suggests.

Final wording of the text will be absolutely critical - whether it is 'no regulatory divergence' or 'continued regulatory alignment' - sounds tedious but hugely important - will NI continue with exactly the same rule + regs, or is it more of a fudge? Critical to DUP response.

Scotland and Wales will be looking very, very closely too - if NI can have special deal why can’t they?

Scotland and Wales will be looking very, very closely too - if NI can have special deal why can’t they?

KK wrote:

Laura Kuenssberg, BBC wrote:Scotland and Wales will be looking very, very closely too - if NI can have special deal why can’t they?

Guardian wrote:According to Sky’s Faisal Islam, the language in the draft text of the agreement seems to have switched from talking about avoiding regulatory divergence between the Republic and Northern Ireland to maintaining regulatory alignment.

This would bring it into line with the language proposed by the European parliament’s Brexit steering group (BSG) in their open letter to Michel Barnier last week. They said:

Concerning Ireland, the BSG believes that the UK must make a clear commitment, to be enshrined in a form which would guarantee its full implementation in the withdrawal agreement, that it would protect the operation of the Good Friday agreement in all its parts, ensure, by means of continued regulatory alignment between the North and the South, there is no hardening of the border on the island of Ireland and that there is no diminishing of the rights of people in Northern Ireland.

Peter Geoghegan, Lecturer Uni West Scotland wrote:The language on alignment on Irish border that seems to be being presented as a concession won by May, echoes that of Guy Verhofstadt. Not sure if this even counts as a fudge.

twitter.com/SMcC_TheDetail/status/937657513155203072

twitter.com/eucopresident/status/937663925482590208