The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 23 March 2017

Also in Portrait of the Week: death of Martin McGuinness; FBI investigates Donald Trump’s Russian connections

issue 25 March 2017

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Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said that on 29 March she would send a letter to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, triggering the process of the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union. A summit of EU leaders was convened for 29 April, with the aim of briefing its negotiator, Michel Barnier. Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland, elicited the support of the Scottish Parliament for her policy of seeking a second referendum on Scottish independence ‘within a short time of’ Brexit. Mrs May had dismissed her request, saying: ‘Now is not the time.’ Ms Sturgeon said an independent Scotland would seek membership of the EU and use sterling as a ‘starting point’. The BBC had been ‘pessimistic and skewed’ in its coverage of Brexit, 72 MPs said in a letter to its director general. A 32-year-old man died while charging his mobile phone in the bath.

Martin McGuinness, for many years an active IRA commander, guilty of bombings and shootings, who became deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, working with the Unionist first minister Ian Paisley, died aged 66.

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