Press

Camino Mortera-Martinez, an analyst at the Centre for European Reform, told the BBC "it's now clear the Greens will have a very important role in policymaking" - partly because liberal and socialist parties know they lost voters to the Greens."It's an easy policy area to make political gains, as it's a popular issue," she said.

Mr Watson pointed out that Shakespeare had based many of his plays on the continent. 'Being European was central to his sense of who he was,' he added. In a keynote speech at the Centre for European Reform, Mr Watson complained that the EU was wrongly being portrayed as a 'threat to our way of life'.

Mr Watson told an audience at the Centre for European Reform that "our hearts are Remain" and that another referendum is the only way to "break the political deadlock" at Westminster.

In his speech at the Centre for European Reform, Watson also took a veiled swipe at some Labour MPs and union officials, including Unite’s general secretary, Len McCluskey, who have cautioned against a referendum, suggesting they had not made the case for how the EU had helped their towns and workers. “For those on the left to fail to acknowledge that is to rewrite history,” he said.“It is no ‘boss’s club’, it is both an engine of progress and a backstop against regressive and repressive governments.”

In a speech at the Centre for European Reform he is expected to say: “Pro-European is who we are and who we have always been. Our members are Remain. Our values are Remain. Our hearts are Remain. The only way to break the political deadlock is to bring the public back into this decision and we must argue strongly to Remain.

Speaking to the Centre for European Reform think-tank, Mr Watson will say: “Pro-European is who we are and who we have always been.
 “Our members are Remain, our values are Remain, our hearts are Remain.
“The only way to break the political deadlock is to bring the public back into this decision - and we must argue strongly to Remain.
“Our future doesn’t need to be Brexit - we can change our future.
“We can put Britain back at the heart of Europe again, we can be proud of leading the fight for a fairer and stronger future, together.

As relations between China and the US have worsened, Tokyo and Brussels have sought to redouble efforts to preserve multilateral peace making and bodies such as the World Trade Organisation. “The Japan-EU relationship is in a fairly good place,” says Sam Lowe of the Centre for European Reform. Trump’s decision to pull out of the 12-nation trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, “put more impetus into Japan pursuing its FTA with the EU”, Lowe contends.

Meanwhile, the government’s publishing of its own no-deal tariff plans, which showed that Britain was prepared to slash tariffs in many sectors, seems to have discouraged some countries such as Canada from engaging in trade talks, according to Sam Lowe, a trade expert at the Centre for European Reform.