Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator has told Britain that time was too short to find an alternative to the Irish border arrangement agreed in their divorce deal, as London wants, and that this deal was not open for renegotiation.

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Banking giant Barclays is to move €190bn (£166bn) worth of assets from the UK to Ireland as the bank readies itself for a possible no-deal Brexit.

The high court on Wednesday approved the lender’s Brexit contingency plans that include transferring the assets linked to about 5,000 of its clients to a Dublin-based unit.

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British car production fell by 9% last year, the biggest drop since the 2008-9 recession, and investment slumped by nearly half due to fears about Brexit, industry body SMMT said.

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PwC and EY said that they will stop providing non-essential consulting services to UK audit clients in the FTSE 350 index by 2020, which they said would improve public trust in the sector.