Brexit negotiations set to start on 19 June

EU chief negotiator plans to start talks billed as most important in UK history 11 days after general election

The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier has pencilled in 19 June for the first formal day of talks with Britain about its withdrawal from the European Union, in what are being billed as the most important negotiations in the country’s history.

That highly symbolic morning, Barnier will face British Brexit secretary, David Davis, for the first day of an arduous 15 months of negotiations to hammer out the terms of the UK’s exit.