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    Theresa May faced a backlash from Tory MPs Monday over plans to pay up to £40billion in a Brexit divorce bill. A host of senior Conservatives blasted plans to stump up a ransom to Brussels after a crunch private meeting of her Brexit War Cabinet. Theresa May is said to be raising the offer to Brussels in a bid to close a deal Mrs May triggered mounting opposition to a hefty divorce bill, amid claims she is set to offer another £20billion on top of what she has already signalled she is willing to pay. Voters would go bananas if the UK forked out £40billion, warned former minister Robert Halfon. He told the BBC: If we start saying that we’re going to give £40 to £50 billion to the EU, I think the public will go bananas, absolutely spare. I voted Remain because I believe in a...

    Theirs was a love match. When the then Princess Elizabeth wed Philip Mountbatten 70 years ago today, no degree of formality, royal protocol or decorum could conceal that she did so for the most romantic of reasons. Their regard for one another is evident in those early photographs, her eyes gazing into his; two people on the threshold of a lifetime of service, during which their marriage would be tested like few others are. Yet despite the extraordinary nature of their existence, living out their years in the full glare of public scrutiny, their union has endured. And to tease out the secret to its success, we must look first to what brought the pair together: their love, an ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken, as Shakespeare put it in Sonnet 116. I...

    The public will go bananas if the government agrees to pay the European Union a £40bn divorce bill, a senior Tory MP has warned. Robert Halfon, a former vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, said voters would not understand such a large sum of money being handed over to Brussels. The EU has demanded the UK agrees to settle its financial commitments before Brexit negotiations can move on to any future trade relationship. According to The Financial Times, May is prepared to increase her initial bid of £2bn to €38bn. However that sum is still short of the £53bn demanded by Brussels. Theresa May will meet with key Cabinet ministers who oversee Brexit talks on Monday morning to discuss the so-called ‘Brexit bill’. Halfon told BBC Radio 4′s Westminster Hour on Sunday evening:...

    More than a year after the UK government pledged to transfer hundreds of child refugees from Greece, the first unaccompanied minor from the country will arrive in London this week. However the 15-year-old Syrian is described by experts as profoundly traumatised because of the delay and has recently attempted to take his own life. Fourteen months have elapsed since the boy was first identified by the Home Office as especially vulnerable and eligible for immediate transfer. It has also emerged that Hammersmith and Fulham council in west London told the Home Office a year ago that it had a place for the teenager, but officials did not act on the offer a decision that charities say has caused irreversible damage to the child, who has lost contact with his family in Syria. Gian...