Welcome to FT Politics, a weekly discussion on what's happening in Westminster from the Financial Times. I'm Sebastian Payne. In this

episode we'll be looking at the latest Brexit developments during so-called

Hell Week and digging into the latest row over Universal Credit. I'm delighted by our political editor George

Parker, Brussels Bureau Chief Alex Barker, columnist Robert Shimsley, and Deputy Opinion

Editor Miranda Green. Thank you all for joining and if you like this episode

of FT Politics don't forget to subscribe through all those usual channels to

receive it every Saturday. Downing Street predicted this was going to be the

week from hell for Brexit and in some ways it was.

The temple was up significantly in Westminster as Theresa May has begun to sell

those final round of compromises she'll need to seal an exit deal with the EU.

It's probably going to involve some form of customs union for that infamous Northern Irish

backstop, something both the right wing of the Conservative Party and the Democratic

Unionist Party are firmly against and Brussels negotiations have been in lockdown as

they're trying to sort out those finer details. George Parker let's begin with the view from Westminster so this

has been a crucial week as it was sold but again as so often is the case in Brexit

nothing has really actually happened apart from a cabinet meeting on Thursday, lots of talk and angry

briefings against proposed compromises, but fundamentally we were where we were

the week before. Well I suppose that's true up to a point and Alex will talk about this a bit later but I think

the weekend that just coming up is going to be the crucial moment where these talks really get

down to the nitty gritty and the possibility of some kind of breakthrough on the

withdrawal treaty. So as you say during the week nothing much happened apart from

the fact you can start to see the battle lines hardening at Westminster around what we think will be the outline of this deal.

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