Ahead of this week’s Conservative Party conference, Prime Minister Theresa May said she will trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of March 2017, formally beginning negotiations for Brexit. Should the process go to plan, the UK will leave the EU by the end of March 2019. Mrs May also promised a “Great Repeal Bill”, to take effect when the UK leaves the EU, which will and enshrine all existing EU law into British law. This will allow the government to amend or revoke any legislation, making the UK an “independent, sovereign nation”.

Theresa May reiterated her preference for free movement between both sides of the Irish border after Brexit. Ahead of June’s EU referendum she said it was inconceivable to suggest Brexit would not have a negative impact on current border arrangements. However, this week Mrs May said she agreed with the Irish government and Northern Ireland Executive about not seeing a “return to the borders of the past”; she would work “closely together” with them to ensure free movement across the border.

On Saturday the three Ligoniel Orange Order lodges peacefully marched past the Ardoyne shop fronts in north Belfast after three years of waiting. This followed last week’s agreement between the Orange Order and the Crumlin Ardoyne Residents Association (CARA). The loyalist protest camp at Twaddell Avenue was dismantled. A number of protesters from the Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective (GARC), which rejected the deal, gathered ahead of the march but dispersed afterwards. Following the parade, Deputy Grand Master of the Orange Order in Belfast, Spencer Beattie, called for “fundamental” reform to parading legislation.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said his party will consider running candidates in Northern Ireland. Although the party has registered supported and members here, it does not field candidates in elections. Mr Corbyn told the BBC: “There is a strong body of opinion in Northern Ireland that wants to be able to stand candidates… There is a democratic deficit in one sense. There is a question of a relationship with other parties in Northern Ireland as well and how that will be affected… There has been a long-standing debate. Let us hear all sides.”

After the first US presidential debate on Monday, Republican nominee Donald Trump said he plans to be “even nastier” about Bill Clinton’s affairs to “unnerve” his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Mr Trump has accused Mrs Clinton of marrying the “single greatest abuser of women in the history of politics”; Hillary, he said “was an enabler.” Also this week, The New York Times claimed that, if tax documents belonging to Mr Trump are to be believed, the Republican nominee paid no federal incomes taxes for 18 years. The Clinton campaign described the claims as a “bombshell”.