Politics

In November last year, a row kicked off when the government asked the philosopher Roger Scruton to chair the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, which will investigate the beauty of architecture in the UK. The 75-year-old philosopher was criticised by opposition MPs in the Commons for remarks he had made in the past about homosexuality, Islamophobia and alleged anti-Semitism. Now, fresh scrutiny has been applied to the government’s decision once again, after Scruton gave an interview in the New Statesman in which he repeated some of his more controversial remarks. The government have since axed Scruton as an advisor. However, many are still questioning why Scruton was appointed to the position in

Gloss it as they may, if EU leaders force a Brexit delay of a year on the UK, contrary to the request from Theresa May – as the EU president Donald Tusk wants – then they will have made a momentous judgement that will cause an earthquake, for us and them. They would be sending a signal that they have lost all confidence in the UK Prime Minister – and probably any UK prime minister – securing parliamentary approval of the Brexit divorce settlement, the Withdrawal Agreement, that they painfully negotiated over two years. The point is that a delay of a year would remove all pressure on equivocal MPs

Every now and then there is a political moment, some event or comment, that reveals just how much society has changed. This week contained one of those moments. On Tuesday it was reported that nine pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong had been found guilty of causing a public nuisance by taking to the streets five years ago to demand a greater democratic say in how their society is governed. And on the same day, the exact same day, the Guardian published an article with the headline ‘Democracy is overrated’. Most voters have ‘no idea’ about what’s going on in the world, the piece argued, and therefore it would be better

The Commons has voted by 420 to 110 to approve Theresa May’s decision to ask for an extension to the Article 50 process to the 30th of June. It isn’t a surprise that this motion passed, there is an anti no-deal majority in the Commons, but the 97 Tory votes against and the number of abstentions, including several Cabinet Ministers, highlights how controversial May’s approach is within her own party. May’s approach would become even more controversial if she agreed to a customs union as part of a deal with Labour, as Liam Fox’s broadside against it showed. The talks between the government and Labour finished for the day earlier

Rumours continue to circulate that if a long extension were to be granted by the European Union, it could be flexible. This would mean that Britain could officially depart from the bloc earlier than the agreed-upon exit date if a deal were secured between the UK and the EU27. I’m unsure what about the past two-and-a-half years could make someone think that MPs will pull together and unite around a deal before crunch time. I remain deeply sceptical that a long extension could ever encourage a shorter exit process – evidenced by not one, but two requests for an Article 50 extension in the past six weeks. Putting scepticism aside, there’s

It makes almost no sense for the Brexit debacle to have come down to the issue of an ‘independent British trade policy’. Trade was not a central issue at the referendum and remains wildly misunderstood by public and politicians alike. But we are where we are. If we end up crashing out by accident, or the May government tears itself apart, it will be on the pretext that significant numbers of Tory MPs want that independent trade policy and cannot stomach the restrictions that a customs union would put on Britain’s freedom over trade. It’s hard to know where to start with trying to dismantle the trade illusion, so long