Politics

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

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Are we heading for a softer Brexit?

With Oliver Letwin’s amendment passing, MPs will seize control of the order paper on Wednesday afternoon to hold indicative votes. These votes will come before any third vote on May’s deal. The not-so-secret hope of many in government is that they might help the withdrawal agreement get over the line. Theory one is that they’ll show that the majority in the Commons is for a softer Brexit, and so push some reluctant ERGers into the government column. Some ministers also hope that the DUP will not be keen to go for an early election at this moment; and will be more inclined to compromise if they think that the government

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory uproar as Bercow insults backbencher Greg Hands

The Commons has just erupted into a bizarre row over an insult thrown across the Chamber. Normally, in these situations, the Speaker ends up scolding the MP who deployed the insult, but in this case it was John Bercow himself who provoked the uproar in the first place. Demanding that Tory MP Greg Hands come to order, the Speaker told the Chamber that Hands hadn’t been a very good whip when he had held the role, which immediately led to angry roars from the Tory benches, followed by repeated shouts of ‘withdraw!’ Initially, Bercow stuck to his guns as Conservatives complained in points of order that he had only recently

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Oliver Letwin called the ‘jobbing prime minister’

This evening MPs voted to take back control, as they backed an amendment tabled by Oliver Letwin to seize control of the parliamentary timetable on Wednesday in order to hold a series of indicative Brexit votes. And while some in the Chamber were clearly happy to see parliament flex its muscles against the government, others were far less impressed to find Letwin suddenly in charge of the Brexit negotiations. Shortly after the motion passed which put into place the indicative vote plan, Tory MP David TC Davies stood up say: ‘I don’t wish to pay tribute to the honourable member for West Dorset [Oliver Letwin], but since he now since

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Full list: the 30 Tory MPs who backed Letwin’s Brexit amendment

MPs have decisively backed Oliver Letwin’s amendment, handing them control of the parliamentary timetable on Wednesday in order to hold a series of indicative votes on Brexit. The cross-party amendment was voted through by 329 votes to 302. Three Tory ministers – Steve Brine, Richard Harrington and Alistair Burt – resigned in order to back the amendment. A total of thirty Tory MPs rebelled against the Government on tonight’s motion. The decision by MPs to back Letwin’s plan is a further major blow to the authority of the Prime Minister. Earlier, Brexit secretary Steve Barclay said the amendment is ‘unprecedented in its nature’. But Theresa May has insisted that the Government

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Theresa May gives MPs another Brexit lecture

The most damaging thing that Theresa May did last week was to turn on MPs in her Downing Street statement, blaming them for the Brexit chaos. Given how settled Westminster seems to be on this conclusion, you might expect the Prime Minister to have tried to mend broken bridges in her Commons statement this afternoon. That she didn’t underlines why so much of this mess is her own responsibility. May was not strident, but neither was she making any attempt to mollify MPs. Indeed, her only attempt to engage with MPs’ role in this involved yet another lecture about the number of chances they had been given to put amendments

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Has Leo Varadkar finally come clean on the Irish border?

Without the issue of the Irish backstop, it is reasonably safe to assume the UK would be leaving the EU on Friday with a withdrawal agreement. The government would not be falling apart and businesses and investors would know where they were. But of course, as we have been told constantly by the EU, the backstop is essential. It is absolutely the only way of ensuring, post-Brexit, that the Irish border remains open. What, then, if the whole thing was a hoax – if Britain and Ireland are capable of agreeing between themselves on a customs arrangement which eliminate the need for customs formalities? That is exactly what it appears

Steerpike Steerpike

Why can’t the New York Times stand Brexit?

It seems that the editors of the New York Times will print any nonsense about Britain — the British live on mutton and oatmeal! — so long as it confirms their prejudices about Brexit. ‘With nothing meaningful to say about our future, we’ve retreated into the falsehoods of the past, painting over the absence of certainty at our core with a whitewash of poisonous nostalgia,’ Sam Byers wrote on Saturday. The British, who are in fact more tolerant of immigration than any other European people, are supposedly ‘poisoned’ by ‘colonial arrogance’ and ‘dreamy jingoism’. Britain, whose stock market carries more trades per day than Wall Street, is somehow a ‘backwater’. Brexit has drawn this nation

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Don’t be fooled by the twee placards at the People’s Vote march

I’ve had a lot of flak for describing Saturday’s march for a ‘People’s Vote’ as ‘disturbing’. Angry emailers inform me it was actually a super-polite demo at which children and even pets joined hundreds of thousands of adults in a good-natured traipse through central London calling for Brexit to be rethought. It’s true the marchers were polite. And it’s true there were pets. I saw a dog with a ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ sticker attached to its head. But the politeness bordering on tweeness of Saturday’s mass march cannot disguise its true and, yes, disturbing aim — to overthrow a great act of democracy. I never thought I would see the

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Will MPs get a free vote on alternatives to the PM’s Brexit plan?

A point of significant tension at this morning’s cabinet will be over whether the PM is to allow her ministers and MPs to vote with their consciences on the indicative votes today and tomorrow to find any Brexit – or no-Brexit plan – that a majority of MPs can support AND on the statutory instrument (SI) that will delay the 29 March date in law for exiting the EU. Apparently the whips want a free vote on the SI, so ministers – including some of them – can vote against it and keep their jobs. And more remainy ministers – led by Greg Clark, Amber Rudd and David Gauke –

Robert Peston Robert Peston

May promises Brexiters she will resign in exchange for their votes

I am reliably told that Theresa May told Boris Johnson, Iain Duncan Smith, Steve Baker, Jacob Rees-Mogg, David Davis et al at Chequers that she will quit if they vote for her deal, including the backstop they hate. But she gave no specifics. So there is not a lot of trust she would actually quit. And the problem is that even if she persuades all Tory ERG MPs to vote for her unamended Withdrawal Agreement, which she won’t (because although Mogg and his supporters may succumb to her call for loyalty, Baker and the Brexiter purists will resist her blandishments) and she also successfully woos Northern Ireland’s 10 DUP, she still does

Sunday

Joolz Gale

The EU is a religion for Germans – no wonder Brexit is going so badly

What makes me chuckle about the Brexiteers is how little they understand the German mindset. Here in Germany, the European Union is a religion. It is ingrained so heavily in the DNA of nearly every German citizen that any reasoned argument to counter its domination, or challenge its direction, is swiftly dismissed. The integrity of the EU – its unity, identity, money and rules – is central to German identity. That’s why they’ve maintained such a tough stance over Brexit. The Germans have been very good to me as a musician in Berlin over the past decade. But on Brexit, I am reminded that I am still deeply British. In

Sean Mcglynn

MPs have reneged on Brexit, so what’s the point of voting?

Katy Balls asks ‘Will there be an election?’ (16 March). That prompts the question: ‘To what purpose?’ Jeremy Corbyn may be ‘keen for an early election to break the deadlock’, but as the EU has repeatedly emphasised that its withdrawal deal is the only one on the table, how would Labour win a substantively better one than what’s already on offer? Besides, in the 2017 general election, more than 80 per cent of the electorate voted for parties promising to remove Britain not just from the EU, but also from its customs union and single market. Duly returned to the Commons, a majority of these MPs are now openly labouring

Matthew Taylor

Philip Hammond: a second referendum “deserves to be considered”

Philip Hammond – Removing May ‘will not help’ Brexit process The Chancellor has taken to the TV studios once ahead of what was intended to be the UK’s final week inside the European Union. He needed up commenting on reports in several of this morning’s papers that the Cabinet was preparing to oust Theresa May and install a caretaker leader to see the next phase of Brexit through. Speaking to Sky’s Sophy Ridge, Hammond said the troublesome question is what, not who. Philip Hammond dismisses reports of a coup against the PM, saying "this is not about the Prime Minister or any other individual. This is about the future of

Toby Young Toby Young

It’s time to send for Michael Gove

On Friday in the Spectator’s Coffee House podcast I suggested Michael Gove should be installed as a caretaker leader until June. I believe this is our best chance — perhaps our only chance — of honouring the result of the referendum. To be clear, I’m a passionate Brexiter and would like as clean a break with Brussels as possible. I want out of the Customs Union and out of the Single Market. If I was an MP, I’d be a member of the ERG. The disastrous course of the Brexit negotiations has made me more anxious to leave, not less. The fact that so many MPs and senior civil servants have

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Our next Prime Minister? David Lidington interview

David Lidington is the most powerful minister you’ve never heard of. He is Theresa May’s de facto deputy, tasked with both supervising the domestic agenda and solving the trickiest Brexit conundrums. And the Sunday newspaper front pages talk about a plot to enstool him as a caretaker Prime Minister: an idea supported, we read, by Amber Rudd, Greg Clark, David Gauke and Philip Hammond: all of whom campaigned against Brexit in the referendum and are most likely to support a customs union-style Brexit favoured by Labour. Lidington is understood to have held talks with Labour a few days ago to implementing a version of this, using Labour support to win

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Cabinet coup or not, the government is on the brink of collapse over Brexit

The correct reports in Sunday Times and Mail on Sunday this morning that some ministers (not all) want Theresa May to go now, and make way for a caretaker – either David Lidington or Michael Gove – tells me NOT she will definitely go within a few days (though she may) but that the government is perilously close to collapse. Because what it shows is the underlying split in the cabinet between those ministers – Gauke, Clark, Rudd, Mundell – who want to stop a no-deal Brexit at any cost, and those who want to prevent either a referendum or a “soft” Brexit “in name only” – Leadsom, Mordaunt, Fox,

Saturday

Ben Gartside

KCL’s chilling clampdown on freedom of speech

‘No Platforming’ and intolerance within the left are too often cited as the only reasons behind the purported demise of free speech on campus, which this week was proven to be untrue. On Wednesday, King’s College London blocked at least ten students from accessing their campus during a visit from the Queen, and passed on the names of students in the KCL Action Palestine Society and the KCL Justice for Cleaners campaign to the police. This caused some of the students involved to miss their compulsory assessments. This move was done in the name of ‘security’, which has also been cited in attempts to shut down right-wing speakers opposed by

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Cabinet coup? Tory MPs look to Gove and Lidington to replace May

Will Theresa May make it to the end of the week? It’s a question that’s been asked before of the Prime Minister but this time the situation is more serious. After a disastrous few days in which May lost the support of her whips, Remain MPs and Brexiteers, the Sunday papers report that a Cabinet coup is underway. Backbench MPs are publicly taking to Twitter to say the Prime Minister’s time is up – while a number of ministers are preparing to confront her on Monday. Given that ministers have a tendency to exhibit more bravery in anonymous Sunday paper briefings than real life meetings, it’s not a definite that

Robert Peston Robert Peston

MPs have one shot this week to prevent a no-deal Brexit

As you know, I have been banging on about the probability that the UK will leave the EU without a deal on 12 April. Having talked to very senior members of the government, and also well-placed sources in the EU, it has become clear to me that MPs have one shot to prevent that – and it will almost certainly be this week that MPs will either rise to the challenge or flunk it. How so? Well, the prime minister and the EU will be looking at the indicative votes that are due to take place on Tuesday and Wednesday – on Tuesday sponsored by the PM, on Wednesday under

Steerpike Steerpike

Revealed: No. 10 leak shows how May could delay Brexit without Parliament’s approval

Ever since MPs first voted to trigger Article 50 everyone has been told that Britain, by law, will be leaving the EU on 29 March. And if that date was ever to change, then Parliament would have to vote for it to change. That’s the British constitution which can be summed up in eight words: ‘What the Queen-in-Parliament enacts is law.’ As the Supreme Court debacle reminded us, only Parliament can change laws that Parliament makes.  So unless Parliament can approve a new Brexit plan, then we leave on Friday next week. Only this week it all got a bit complicated. After the Prime Minister sought an Article 50 extension in