The course of Brexit was set in the hours and days after the 2016 referendum. / It was at 6:22 a.m. on June 24, 2016 — 59 minutes before the official tally was unveiled — that the European Council sent its first “lines to take” to the national governments that make up the EU.

‘Perhaps I am being a bit harsh, but it’s about time we became a bit harsh,’ says Frans Timmermans.

Boris Johnson viewed as Trump-like figure while Dominic Raab accused of ‘making things up’. / The EU has been on a Brexit break since the UK secured a six-month delay to its departure. With Theresa May soon to leave 10 Downing Street, Brussels is tuning in to the Westminster drama of the Tory leadership race – with both amazement and exasperation.

Ex-minister’s claim about EU boast over Brexit resurfaces in pro-unionist campaign video. / The European commission has described a claim made by the Conservative leadership hopeful Dominic Raab about a key EU official’s views on Brexit as “fake, fraudulent and pure disinformation” after it was spread in an election campaign video.

On Monday morning Martin Selmayr, the secretary general of the European Commission, was in mid-flow briefing EU ambassadors on how efforts over the weekend to get legally binding assurances on the Irish backstop had ground to a halt.

The EU is preparing for a delay to Brexit of at least a year, senior officials and diplomats have said.