The UK's energy partner.

Learn more at equinore.

Good morning from the newsroom of the Financial Times.

Today is Monday, October 15th, and this is your FT news briefing.

Every morning by 5 a.m. in London,

we'll bring you the top business stories you need to know to start your day.

And today in our first briefing we'll be looking at yet another bump in the road to Brexit

Why Angala Merkel's Grand Coalition may be in trouble, and how a $20 billion drug market

is up for grabs.

I'm Amy Keene.

And I'm Eric Krupky.

And here's the global news you need to start your day.

Some hoped a Brexit deal might be close yesterday,

but it looks like it might still be far off.

EU and British negotiators in Brussels had a potential deal sketched out, but

Prime Minister Theresa May said that deal won't work.

The biggest issue is still the so-called Irish backstop, and that's the guarantee that there will be no hard border in Ireland.

The F2's political editor George Parker brings us up to speed.

I'm in the House of Commons at Westminster where Brexit talks are very much in the balance after a dramatic

standoff in Brussels on Sunday evening. Theresa May sent her Brexit envoy Dominic Rhab to Brussels

to say there was no way that she could sign on the dotted line on the deal on Brexit which being presented by the European Union.

She fears it would simply rip her government apart with cabinet resignations and also the rising up of the Democratic Unionist

...