May says Brexit talks to start as scheduled

A Number 10 spokesman said: "We welcome this commitment, which can provide the stability and certainty the whole country requires as we embark on Brexit and beyond".

A deal between the government and the Democratic Unionist party will not be announced on Wednesday because of the calamitous fire that engulfed a tower block in west London.

Discussions in Westminster are continuing without Theresa May after she left for Paris for a pre-arranged meeting with newly elected president Emmanuel Macron.

The nationalist Sinn Fein and SDLP and the cross-community Alliance have all made clear Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire can not chair the ongoing process to restore power-sharing at Stormont due to the perceived conflict of interest.

Foster will nearly certainly ask for greater investment in Northern Ireland as part of the deal, as well as guarantees on support for pension plans and for winter fuel allowances for older people.

To do so, she will be heavily reliant on the 10 lawmakers from the eurosceptic DUP, who can help her edge past the 326 votes needed in Parliament to avoid the collapse of the government.

Tory chief whip Gavin Williamson, who flew to Belfast for talks with the DUP at the weekend, took the lead for the Conservatives.

As talks go on, the European Union unveiled plans to give itself new powers over London's banking business after Brexit, in what could be a blow to the city's supremacy as a global financial hub.

According to Sky sources, "significant progress" has been made in discussions so far and both sides anticipate an agreement will be made by Thursday at the latest.

"Westminster has brought us austerity, has brought us hardship, and it has hurt the working class people in our communities", one of their MPs told reporters at a news conference in London.

Former Conservative prime minister John Major has also raised doubts about the deal and its impact on the province's "fragile" peace, telling BBC radio that the government "will not be seen to be impartial" if locked into a deal.

That border will become an external European Union border after Brexit and there have been growing fears that any border controls would have a serious economic impact on both Northern Ireland and the Republic.

The Democratic Unionist Party controls the Northern Irish Assembly.

"We really need to do everything we conceivably can to make sure that that doesn't happen, and that does require an impartial United Kingdom government".

"The Labour Party stands ready to offer strong and stable leadership in the national interest", he said.

Macron said the door was still open for Britain to remain in the European Union, though he added that it would be hard to walk back once negotiations start. "I can't negotiate with myself", Barnier was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.

Ireland's Prime Minister Enda Kenny has warned May that deal might endanger peace.