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British government sees no point in being at event in Rome because UK will not be involved in planning bloc’s future  Theresa May with Angela Merkel at the EU summit in Malta. The British PM is not expected to attend the Rome summit. Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft Jennifer Rankin   Theresa May  is expected to miss the EU’s 60th anniversary summit in March because the British government sees no point in being involved in planning the future of the EU. The British prime minister was invited to join the celebrations on 25 March with 27 other EU leaders but decided not to take part, a senior EU diplomat told the Guardian. “The door was open, but the response was, ‘We don’t think it is appropriate for us,’” the diplomat said, summarising the UK response. A second EU source said May’s decision was “entirely logical” because the main focus of the summit would be the future. “We are still a union of 28 and Theresa is of course very welcome to come and celebrate 60 years of the EU in Rome,” t

THE future of British trade after Brexit is shrouded in uncertainty. It is an unprecedented process, so it is hard to know where to look for clues as to how it may work out. One possibility is a country whose trading patterns were perhaps more disrupted than any other’s by Britain’s accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973: New Zealand. Just as Brexit is likely to mean the end of British access to the single market, so “Brentry” ended New Zealand’s preferential access to the “mother country”. In 1961, when Britain first announced its intention to join the EEC, it took about half of New Zealand’s exports—a similar proportion to the EU’s share of British exports today. New Zealand’s prime minister at the time, Keith Holyoake, warned his British counterpart, Harold Macmillan, that, without safeguards for its exports, New Zealand would be “ruined”. After years of negotiations, a transitional deal in 1971 agreed quotas for New Zealand butter, cheese and lamb over a five

British Prime Minister Theresa May (Photo by AFP) The government of British Prime Minister Theresa May says Scotland should not launch a new independence referendum, arguing that the Scottish people have already voiced their opposition to secede from the UK over Brexit. "We don't believe that there should be a second referendum. There has been a referendum, it was clear, decisive, it was legal, and both sides agreed to abide by the results of that referendum," May's spokesman told journalists on Wednesday, referring to the country’s previous attempt to become independent. Scotland held its first referendum in 2014, when over 55 percent of the people voted against independence. However, talks of a new referendum gained momentum following a spat between Britain and Scotland over the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU). Although nearly 52 percent of Britons opted to leave the bloc during the EU referendum in June last year, some 62 percent of the Scottish