Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Nicola Sturgeon’s Brexit bounce

There was a fairytale quality to Nicola Sturgeon’s speech to the SNP conference this afternoon. On the one hand, she demanded a second referendum on independence next year; on the other, almost no-one in Scottish politics really believes there will be a referendum next year. In tandem with this rallying call for national liberation – an emancipation made ever more urgent by the looming Brexit fiasco – there ran another line of argument: conference delegates, like the wider nationalist movement, must be careful and canny and patient. Which is another way of saying that, whatever the headlines suggest, it’s probably not happening. At least not yet. For the last few

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Spain was wrong to jail the Catalan separatists

Some things just don’t pass the gut test. Your head tells you they’re right, all the facts point in their favour, but you can’t suppress a dyspeptic rumbling. The jailing of Catalan separatist leaders should give us all political indigestion. On Monday, Spain’s Supreme Court sentenced 12 activists and key figures from the autonomous government and parliament of Catalonia, all of whom helped organise an illegal referendum in October 2017 to secure independence for the Spanish region. Nine defendants, including former ministers and the parliamentary speaker, were jailed for up to 13 years for offences including sedition and misuse of public funds. Three others were fined for lesser offences. The

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Emily Thornberry accused of sexism for Commons jibe

Emily Thornberry has had a busy day in the Commons. Labour’s shadow foreign secretary heckled her counterpart Dominic Raab this morning after he claimed Jeremy Corbyn wanted Britain to withdraw from Nato. Now, she’s been at it again: apparently yelling the word ‘bollocks’ at international development secretary Alok Sharma during a testy exchange. John Bercow then stepped in to calm things down. Only for Tory MP Hugo Swire to accuse Thornberry of being sexist. Mr S wonders whether Boris Johnson might have been right to prorogue parliament after all…

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

A People’s Vote is no substitute for an effective opposition

Sympathetic journalists covering the Remain movement are stuck by how far away it is from the ugliness of politics. Its activists are, to use a word that damns with faint praise, ‘nice’. It is better to be nice than vicious, of course. It is better to be nice than mendacious and unscrupulous and so criminally irresponsible you would burn down the whole country rather than admit to a mistake. But, we liberal reporters flinch at the sight of all the niceness. The nice never win a war, we think. Nice gets you nowhere in modern Britain. When we ask how they will deal with thugs and manipulators of the calibre

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Boris Johnson’s humiliating Brexit options

We should know on Wednesday night whether Boris Johnson has his Brexit deal proper, or whether he has an outline deal that will require a few more weeks of technical talks, or whether the gap is unbridgeable. Why? Because Donald Tusk has made it clear there will be no serious negotiations at the EU council itself on Thursday and Friday, just a rubber stamping exercise. But Johnson knows that if he wants an actual deal this week, he’ll have to sign up to something very like a Northern Ireland-only backstop, which would represent a massive eating of humble pie – not cake – for him. It would also be hard

Monday

David Bergman

Don’t blame police officers for the botched Carl Beech probe

There are few assessments of a police investigation more damning than the one written by retired judge Sir Richard Henriques, published last week, concerning how the Metropolitan Police investigated the allegations of a man called “Nick” over the course of 15 months. Yet the Independent Office for Police Conduct’s report, published a few days later, was right to conclude that no disciplinary or criminal action should be taken against any individual police officers. At the end of 2014, “Nick” – whose real name was Carl Beech – had told detectives that as a boy in the 1970s and 1980s he was one of dozens of victims of a VIP sex ring comprising

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Did anyone take the Queen’s Speech seriously?

If today’s Queen’s Speech was meant to offer a preview of what the next general election and life after it will look like, you might be forgiven for wishing you were somewhere far, far away from British politics. The debate in the House of Commons this afternoon was turgid and pointless. It was almost as if everyone involved couldn’t quite be bothered to rise to the occasion of a new legislative programme because they knew that it was more of a political messaging operation. Jeremy Corbyn gave one of his least convincing speeches as Leader of the Opposition, which is plumbing quite some depths. He managed to both dismiss the

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Sadiq Khan’s selective concern about ‘voter suppression’

Sadiq Khan has got some front. He is complaining about the government’s voter ID plans, claiming it will lead to ‘voter suppression’. And yet he is engaged in the most explicit and awful act of voter suppression in the living memory of this country — the elitist effort to suppress the votes of the 17.4m people who backed Brexit. Sometimes you wonder if the Remain-leaning elites can even hear themselves. These people have spent almost three years agitating against the largest democratic vote in UK history. Some of them want the vote to be revoked entirely (the ‘Liberal’ ‘Democrats’) while others, like Sadiq, want a second referendum to override the

Robert Peston Robert Peston

The biggest risk with Boris Johnson’s Queen’s Speech

This is more an election manifesto launch than a conventional Queen’s Speech, because Boris Johnson simply does not have the numbers in the Commons to legislate for all – or any – of the measures announced today. At the risk of being sexist and aide-ist, the legislative programme shows the strong influence on the PM of the two people who seem most influential on him: his partner Carrie Symonds and his chief aide Dominic Cummings, with a package of environment and animal welfare measures (Symonds’ passion) and a bunch of stuff to reinforce the UK’s science and research (Cummings’s). Otherwise it is the anticipated skeleton of a Johnsonian election manifesto: it is

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Dennis Skinner heckles Black Rod

As tradition dictates, at every Queen’s Speech and State Opening of Parliament, Black Rod (the House of Lords official) will knock three times on the House of Commons door before entering, and leading MPs to listen to the Queen’s speech in the other Chamber. And every year, like clockwork, the Labour MP Dennis Skinner will heckle the official when she enters the Commons. As expected, this year was no exception. Although, it seems to Mr S as though the quality of Skinner’s ‘jokes’ are deteriorating quickly. As Black Rod finished her speech in the Chamber this time, and invited MPs to follow her to the Lords, the Beast of Bolsover could

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Could Boris Johnson win an election but lose his seat?

Is Boris safe in Uxbridge? The Lib Dems have an eye on the Prime Minister’s 5000 vote majority and their candidate, Dr Liz Evenden-Kenyon, hopes to dislodge him at the general election. But she needs help. With the support of a new formation, Renew UK, she plans to ‘kick Johnson out of Uxbridge’. I went to a ‘meet and greet’ outside the tube station at the weekend only to find that the campaigners had packed up half an hour before the event was due to end. Perhaps it’s no surprise they hadn’t taken Uxbridge by storm. A Facebook announcement posted on 8 October had been shared just five times. My attempts

Sunday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Can ministers really hold their nerve on Brexit this week?

Boris Johnson is now in what’s known in cricket as the ‘Nervous Nineties’, when a batsman becomes so anxious about reaching his century that he takes unusually conservative decisions – or is so nervous he accidentally gets himself out. We are now in what could be the final few days of the Brexit negotiations, and the Prime Minister is trying to be unusually cautious about what’s said and done. Ministers are being urged to hold their nerve rather than make comments which could push the talks off course, and No. 10 is remaining very tight-lipped. In a cabinet call this afternoon which a number of ministers described as ‘businesslike’, Johnson

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The purpose of Boris Johnson’s Queen’s Speech

Normally a Prime Minister uses a Queen’s Speech to lay out their government’s legislative agenda for the year ahead. However, with the government currently boasting a working majority in the region of -40, few ministers expect Boris Johnson to be able to even pass his first Queen’s Speech as Prime Minister – let alone the individual bills. Instead, Johnson and his ministers hope Monday’s set piece event will provide a public platform for the things the government would do were they to win a majority in a forthcoming election. Johnson plans to present an ‘optimistic and ambitious’ Queen’s Speech that would make the UK ‘the greatest place on earth’. There

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Corbyn says parliament should be ‘cautious’ about PM’s Brexit deal

Sophy Ridge began her show with an interview with Jeremy Corbyn. Brexit negotiations are at a critical juncture with an elusive withdrawal deal seemingly in the government’s reach ahead of the EU council summit on the 17th. Corbyn expressed doubts about backing any such deal, citing concerns about the Irish border and urged MPs from other parties not to wave through the deal out of relief that a no deal exit would be avoided: JC: I think many in parliament – not necessarily Labour MPs but others – might be more inclined to support it even if they don’t really agree with the deal. But I would caution them on

James Kirkup James Kirkup

If Boris does a Brexit deal, it will be because of the ‘Surrender Act’

Will he strike a deal with the EU allowing Britain to leave this month? Will he compromise on the Irish border? I don’t know what Boris Johnson will do. I’ve thought for some time that he and the Conservatives would be quite willing to compromise on Northern Ireland’s future status, but I’ve also often wondered whether some people close to him would be quite happy to charge towards a no-deal exit in hope of smashing through all those who would stand in the way. Let us assume the current talks with the EU are being held in good faith on both sides. This does make sense: both sides’ best interests

Saturday

William Clouston

A solution to Britain’s two-party problem

A paralysed prime minister holed up in Downing Street, a deadlocked Parliament out of touch with public sentiment and political discourse descending into rancour and abuse. Millions of British people can be forgiven for looking at this situation with total despair. What caused this situation? An unreformed political system well past its sell by date combined with political parties which have lost their way. Can we do better? Of course. The solution lies in a ‘red & blue’ political reformation.  For many years, those holding a traditional, communitarian or patriotic outlook have been gradually marginalised. Parliament has become increasingly detached from mainstream viewpoints – no more so than over Brexit

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Is a deal really possible?

It is one of the most remarkable turnarounds in recent political history. On Wednesday afternoon, the Brexit talks seemed pretty much dead—hence my piece in the magazine this week. Even the optimists in Downing Street were struggling to see anyway through. But by Friday lunchtime, the UK and the EU were agreeing to intensify negotiations as they searched for a deal. As I say in The Sun this morning, the negotiations going on in Brussels this weekend are serious: they aren’t just for the show. This doesn’t, though, mean that a deal will definitely be done. But things are on the move. Now, the sheer pace of this turnaround is

Charles Moore Charles Moore

When Jacob Rees-Mogg met Extinction Rebellion

I walked down Villiers Street to Embankment Tube station. In front of me were two Extinction Rebels, a mother and daughter. Strapped to the little girl’s back was a white teddy bear. Strapped to the bear’s back was the handwritten slogan: ‘You selfish gits. Stop burning down my house.’ I wonder how they knew I was a selfish git, since I wore no emblem to announce the fact. Luckily they did not know I was off to a large party of fellow selfish gits to launch volume III of my biography of Mrs Thatcher. It was taking place in the Banqueting House, Whitehall, yards from XR’s encampment, and was eloquently addressed

William Cook

Why most Brexiteers actually love the Germans

‘We didn’t win two world wars to be pushed around by a Kraut.’ Do you find this statement: a) Funny, and rather pertinent b) Unfunny, and a bit embarrassing c) Conclusive proof that Brexiteers are reactionary xenophobes, whose desire to leave the EU is driven by hatred of Germany If you answered c) you may well be one of the many people who took to Twitter to denounce this Leave.EU tweet, which was accompanied by a photo of Angela Merkel with one arm held aloft: Leave.EU’s Arron Banks subsequently issued a tepid apology, but the damage was already done. At a time when reasonable Britons on both sides are searching

Friday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Lynn Barber Edition

26 min listen

Lynn Barber is an award-winning journalist known for her incisive interviews and her best-selling books An Education and How to Improve Your Man in Bed. On this episode, she talks to Katy about her lifetime of interviewing the great and the good, from Salvador Dali to Katie Price; the death threats she received from Rafa Nadal’s fans; and her favourite (and least favourite) BBC journalists. Presented by Katy Balls.