Politics

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

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tory party depends on winning over Leave-voting Labour seats

A Prime Minister held in No. 10 against his will. The very notion seems absurd, but this is essentially what is happening right now. Boris Johnson wants a general election, a chance to see whether the public agree with him or parliament on the sanctity of the 31 October deadline for leaving the European Union. The House of Commons won’t give him one. Instead it keeps him in office while the opposition condemn him as unfit to be there. In more normal times, the Supreme Court finding unanimously that the prime minister acted unlawfully in the advice he gave the Queen would lead to either a prime ministerial resignation or a

Steerpike Steerpike

Valerie Vaz demands Geoffrey Cox apologise for calling MPs ‘turkeys’

There is no love lost between MPs in the Commons today following last night’s fractious debate. But has one Labour MP gone a little too far in calling for her opposite number to say sorry? Shadow Commons leader Valerie Vaz took to her feet this afternoon to ask Geoffrey Cox to ‘come to the House to apologise’. The reason? For ‘calling us turkeys’, Vaz told the Commons. Mr S. remembers hearing worse in the school playground…

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Brexit voters do feel betrayed. So why can’t Boris say so?

Rarely has there been such a flagrant display of hypocrisy and cant as there was in the House of Commons last night. Opposition MPs stood up one after the other to denounce Boris Johnson for his use of apparently toxic and dangerous words like ‘surrender’ and ‘sabotage’. Such language is polluting the public sphere and making life hell for politicians, they claimed. Their ostentatious offence-taking would be a tad more convincing if they had ever said anything about the bile heaped on Brexit voters these past three years. Where were these people when it became positively vogue to refer to lower middle-class Brexit blokes as ‘gammon’? Where were they when

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Has Boris Johnson ruined his chances of passing a Brexit deal?

Boris Johnson’s behaviour in the Commons last night was clearly part of his strategy to set up a ‘people vs parliament’ narrative ahead of an election. We can debate the rights and wrongs of telling MPs that the best way to honour Jo Cox would be to get Brexit done, but there are also political implications of this. The Prime Minister’s team has, over the past few weeks, been making contact with Labour MPs to try to persuade them of the merits of supporting a Brexit deal should one come before the Commons. Many of them have been sympathetic: they regret not supporting Theresa May’s deal and are fearful of

Douglas Murray

MPs and the outrage game

It was never clear what this Parliament was going to do if it was no longer prorogued. For three years the UK Parliament has been unable to act on the 2016 referendum result. It was never clear what they were hoping to achieve if they got an extra three days, weeks or months. But the Parliament that reassembled yesterday managed to live down to even what low expectations there might have been. The Members appear to have decided, as is the way in modern British politics, to win by playing games of language and offence taking. The signs were clear when the Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox, at one stage referred

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The torture chamber: how opposition MPs plan to humiliate Boris

When Jeremy Corbyn declared at Labour conference that his party would only allow an election once no deal had been taken off the table, MPs began to wonder if it could be put off until the new year. The Prime Minister’s tormentors can’t agree when exactly they would like to go to the country, but all agree that there are plenty of ways to torture Boris Johnson. It’s as good a way as any to pass the time. The Tories no longer have a working majority, so these opposition MPs — aided by activist Speaker John Bercow — now hold the power. What will they do? Well, the Conservatives are meant

Rory Sutherland Rory Sutherland

Why business is perfectly relaxed about Brexit

It’s difficult to go into the office nowadays, since most of my colleagues are so distraught by the prospect of a no-deal Brexit that they rarely speak. The finance department have painted European flags on their faces for solace, and spend the day staring blankly out of the window sobbing over a tear-stained picture of Guy Verhofstadt. Except, um, no. None of this has happened. In fact, most businesses seem weirdly calm in contemplation of a no-deal Brexit. I have met people from multinationals who are sanguine about Brexit, and those who are worried, but few get emotional about the subject as, say, academics, politicians or journalists do. Brexit has

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

‘Cameron was a bloody good prime minister’: Michael Gove interviewed

Michael Gove stands in front of an empty throne in the magnificent Cabinet Office room. George III was the last monarch to use it and there it has stayed, beneath his portrait. For a second, it looks like Gove is about to sit in it and grant us an audience, but he’s only leaning over to show off the royal crest. At the other end of the room stands a large television which, a few hours before we meet, was used by Gove and other ministers to watch Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling. From the madness of King George III, to the humiliation of Boris Johnson. As the minister in charge

Paul Embery

Paul Embery: Labour is too much Hampstead, not enough Hartlepool

Arrived in Remain-on-sea (also known as Brighton) for Labour party conference. As an old-fashioned trade unionist hailing from a working-class heartland who supports Brexit, opposes mass immigration and doesn’t believe someone with a penis can be a woman, I feel about as welcome as a hedgehog at a nudist colony. The conference centre and fringe mills with the usual throng of delegates and activists. Many are unquestionably decent people fighting for a better world. But it is largely an army of the woke, liberal middle-classes and young toytown revolutionaries — as though the social services department at Camden council and the Labour club at the University of Sussex have arranged

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

At least Thomas Cook’s fall allows ministers to look in control

It’s not obvious that the state has a moral obligation to repatriate holidaymakers whenever a tour operator goes bust, as Thomas Cook did on Sunday night. Being briefly stranded in a sangria-fuelled resort is not like being left behind in a war zone, after all. But when large numbers of tourists are involved such situations will swiftly become consular crises if government does nothing to help. So there’s pragmatic reason for ministers to act — as well as political motives that might have been scripted by Armando Iannucci for The Thick of It. Here’s the scenario: a government in chaos under a prime minister who’s all over the Sunday papers

Charles Moore Charles Moore

For millennials, pre-Thatcher Britain must seem another — quite mystifying — country

Lymeswold; Hi-de-Hi!; nuclear-free zones; Walkmans; the Metro; Red Robbo; the SDP; Michael Foot’s Cenotaph donkey-jacket; Protest and Survive; Steve Davis and Hurricane Higgins; Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett; hunger strikes; Red Ken and Fare’s Fair; ‘On your bike’; Lady Diana; ‘hog-whimpering drunk’; Chariots of Fire; Beefy Botham; ‘The lady’s not for turning’; the Peterborough Effect; Spectrum computers; ‘Gotcha!’; ‘We are not Britain. We are the BBC.’ Councillor Jeremy Corbyn. Merely to repeat these names and phrases, all drawn from this, the fifth in Dominic Sandbrook’s great chronicle of Britain since the 1950s, is to re-enter the period. It encompasses the first three years of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership up to and

Wednesday

Andrew Willshire

Should the Scottish Tories join forces with the Lib Dems?

Scottish politics is stuck. As with Brexit across the wider United Kingdom, the 2014 independence referendum has permanently shifted attitudes of the majority of the population into Yes/No camps, with little room for compromise. The SNP government stumbles from one crisis of service delivery to another yet continues to consistently poll around 40 per cent. In first-past-the-post Westminster elections, this is sufficient to return a clear majority of MPs, and probably to still be returned as the largest party in the Scottish Parliament in the scheduled 2021 election. The problem for Scotland is that the SNP believe this to be a mandate to speak “for Scotland” in broader constitutional matters,

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson has shown a worrying lack of emotional intelligence

The House of Commons has just turned very ugly indeed, after Boris Johnson dismissed a Labour MP who was complaining about the abuse and threats she and other colleagues are receiving as ‘humbug’. Paula Sherriff – who has had a particularly sustained campaign of abuse against her, including swastikas being left at her office – made an angry appeal to the Prime Minister to consider his language, and referred to the murder of her colleague Jo Cox as she did. This is what happened: Paula Sherriff: I genuinely do not seek to stifle robust debate but this evening the Prime Minister has continually used pejorative language to describe an Act of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn clash spectacularly in the Commons

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn have just clashed spectacularly in the House of Commons. Boris Johnson repeatedly goaded Jeremy Corbyn over his refusal to go for an election now.  This was not a Prime Minister acting like one who had been chastened by the Supreme Court’s decision, but one determined to set himself up as the man determined to deliver Brexit against a parliament that was trying to stop him. One of the most striking features of his speech was how frequently he declared that the public could tell what was really going on, that MPs were trying to block Brexit. In response, Jeremy Corbyn was not at his best.

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Why Boris Johnson should request a Brexit delay from the EU

Boris Johnson wants a general election now. Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon both say they want an election but not till after they are sure that the provisions of the Benn Act have been effective and the UK is NOT leaving the EU without a deal on October 31. As far as I can see the only way for Johnson to break the impasse is for him to do precisely the opposite of what he has promised. He should request a Brexit delay from the EU – and for the explicit purpose of fighting an election to determine whether or not the British people would give him a mandate for

Rupert Darwall

Labour’s reckless net zero promise

On the face of it, the Labour party conference commitment to bring forward Britain’s net zero greenhouse gas emission target to 2030 is nothing short of reckless. ‘We need zero emissions,’ the economist Paul Johnson and member of the Committee on Climate Change tweeted. ‘Getting there by 2050 is tough and expensive but feasible and consistent with avoiding most damaging climate change. Aiming for zero emissions by 2030 is almost certainly impossible, hugely disruptive and risks undermining consensus.’ The GMB, the union representing what remains of Britain’s industrial workers, warned that it could lead to widespread job losses. The GMB is right. Accelerated decarbonisation is a formula for rapid de-industrialisation.

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Geoffrey Cox slams MPs – ‘This Parliament is a disgrace’

Geoffrey Cox is not a happy bunny. The Attorney General has just blasted MPs, telling them that Parliament is a ‘disgrace’. Here’s what he had to say in the Commons: ‘This Parliament has declined three times to pass a withdrawal agreement. Then we now have a wide number of this house setting its face against leaving at all. And when this government draws the only logical inference from that position, which is that it must leave therefore without a deal at all. It still sets its face, denying the electorate its say in how this matter should be resolved. This parliament is a dead parliament. It should no longer sit.

Steven Fielding

Is this the beginning of the end for Jeremy Corbyn?

Did Labour’s conference help or hinder Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of becoming prime minister? For some, Corbyn ended up stronger than ever. There will be a review of the post of deputy leader, one likely to see the authority of Tom Watson, his severest internal critic, greatly diminished. Corbyn also won a critical vote on Brexit which endorsed his position of neutrality going into a general election. The conference also passed a raft of policies that confirm support in the party for Corbyn’s desire to dramatically extend state intervention in the cause of promoting economic growth, greater equality and tackling climate change. As John McDonnell, the ultimate architect of the party’s

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Jeremy Corbyn would destroy the market for specialist medicines

Amid Labour’s jubilation over the Supreme Court decision yesterday it would have been easy to miss Jeremy Corbyn’s latest attack on the market economy. But it shouldn’t go unremarked because what Corbyn proposed would seriously damage the pharmaceuticals industry – either meaning that taxpayers would have to bear the enormous costs of developing drugs, or would mean fewer drugs being developed at all. Corbyn cited the case of nine year old cystic fibrosis sufferer Luis Walker, who is being denied the medicine, Orkambi, because the drugs manufacturer is refusing to sell it to the NHS at an affordable cost. Labour, he said, would end the outrage of drugs companies which put

Tuesday

Mark Lehain

Even teachers are turning against Labour

At first, I assumed it would be a one off. I’m chatting about nothing in particular with a friend at a teacher conference when, having checked that no one else was in earshot, she blurted out: ‘Look, don’t tell anyone, but I don’t think I can vote Labour any more. Their education stuff… it’s just crazy. It’ll take us back to the bad old days. I might even have to vote Tory.’ Like a priest in a confessional, I assured her that I would of course not breathe a word to anyone about her sin of Tory-thinking. We chatted some more, both regretting Labour’s takeover by Bad Ideas and Bad