Brexit is 'Tory party catfight that got out of hand', says Verhofstadt

The joint motion is being discussed by MEPs

The European Parliament (Getty)

Welcome to The Independent’s liveblog of proceedings in the European Parliament as MEPs debate the EU leader’s draft guidelines for the Brexit negotiations. MPs voted to to formalise their Brexit position on Wednesday.

Dozens of MEPs spoke including Ukip group leader Nigel Farage. Guy Verhostadt, the parliament’s Brexit negotiator, also set out his position.

It comes after the Leader of the biggest political grouping Manfred Weber warned that London will “lose” out from Brexit to rivals like Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Dublin.

He also underlined that Britain’s divorce bill – up to £50bn by some estimates – should be the first item on the Brexit agenda and that the UK must give guarantees not to turn itself into a Singapore-style tax haven.

London is the world's leading financial centre for the lucrative clearing of derivatives denominated in euros, but Mr Weber said: “It’s not thinkable that, at the end, the whole euro-business is still managed in London.

“This is an external place, this is not an EU place anymore. The euro-business should be managed on EU soil.”

He explained that a natural outcome of Brexit would be that when it came to euro-related business, cities like Amsterdam, Paris, Dublin and Frankfurt will “win and others will lose”.