Politics

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

Tuesday

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Brexit is making Tories unforgivably careless about the union

On Saturday, a car bomb went off in the UK. In Londonderry, Northern Ireland, to be exact. It was the latest in a long, long list of terrorist-related incidents in Northern Ireland, many of them carried out by men who wish to unite the island of Ireland in one state. Today, the European Commission stated, more bluntly than it ever has before, that Britain leaving the EU without a deal will mean a hard border between the EU (Ireland) and the UK (Northern Ireland). That means checkpoints and men in uniform policing the physical division of the island of Ireland. Let us, if such a thing is possible, set aside questions

Steerpike Steerpike

Anna Soubry: people have had enough of 62-year-old Tory women

While several members of the ERG announced that they were voting against Theresa May in the Conservative leadership vote of no confidence last year, those on the Remain side of the Tory Party have generally been much more supportive of the PM, especially when it comes to public displays of loyalty. Chief Remainer Anna Soubry for one has routinely given interviews in support of May and sent this message on social media ahead of her confidence vote last year: ‘We don’t need to change PM but the PM must change course. Get the vote back next week. And when it’s lost take this matter back to the people. It’s the

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Snobs and mobs agree on the cost of a second referendum | 22 January 2019

Britain moved a step close to Weimar yesterday when the Prime Minister used the threat of terrorism to get her way. Being a conservative woman of the upper-middle class, Theresa May did not precisely mimic the cries of ‘there will be blood’ that come from the right’s more deranged corners. You don’t talk like that if you want to get on in Thames Valley society. Rather the Prime Minister issued her warning in the careful language of a bureaucrat. ‘There has not yet been enough recognition of the way that a second referendum could damage social cohesion by undermining faith in our democracy,’ she said. You would have missed her intent

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is Dyson’s Singapore move anything to do with Brexit?

Brexit has become the inverse of a pair of rose-tinted spectacles. It is the lens through which all negative economic news has come to be interpreted – and magnified. Yesterday, the IMF published its latest forecasts for global economic growth. One might well ask what use this material is, given the IMF’s past record at economic forecasting. But whether these forecasts are of any value or not, they have, predictably enough, been jumped on by the Remain-supporting media in order to scribble yet another chapter of anti-Brexit narrative. Indeed, according to this narrative, it is not just Britain which seems to be suffering now from the moronic, misinformed decision of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Jeremy Hunt proposes a plan to make the backstop time-limited

Cabinet today was not as dramatic as some had expected. No one argued for ministers being allowed a free vote on the Cooper / Boles amendment. Indeed, I’m told the Chief Whip’s plea for ministers to stick to collective responsibility went unchallenged. Perhaps, the two most interesting contributions came from Jeremy Hunt and David Gauke. Gauke questioned the government’s new approach. He said he was worried that even if the government did get something on the backstop, there still wouldn’t be enough Tory MPs backing the deal for it to pass. While Hunt argued that the best thing for the government to do was to get parliamentary support for a

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

In defence of Diane Abbott

The question I had hoped to pose this week was this: “Do people dislike Diane Abbott because she is black and a woman, or because she is useless?” But then I worried that we would come to a fairly definitive conclusion a long time before my allotted 1,000 words had been used up. “The latter, I think,” is the response I have heard time and time again, both from Labour supporters and Tories. For the entire day before Abbott’s appearance on Question Time, in which she thinks she was treated badly on account of the colour of her skin and her gender, my wife had been bouncing around the house

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: David Blunkett despairs at Chris Williamson’s Brexit stance

David Blunkett once ruled the roost in the Labour party but under Jeremy Corbyn, Blair’s old acolytes are mostly ignored within their old party. So it’s no surprise that there was little for Blunkett to do other than hold his head in his hands as Corbynista favourite Chris Williamson spelled out his views on Brexit today. Appearing on the BBC’s Politics Live, Williamson said he wasn’t that bothered by a no deal Brexit because the ‘key thing’ for a future government to focus on is ‘redistributing income and wealth’. Williamson admitted that economic growth might not be quite as fast if Britain did leave the EU without a deal, but

Monday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Did Corbyn really just move closer to backing a second referendum?

After Theresa May appeared before the Commons to reveal that her Brexit Plan B looks an awful lot like her Brexit Plan A, MPs now have a chance to try and force the Prime Minister to change path. Next week, MPs will vote on May’s Brexit motion – along with a series of amendments submitted by MPs. A range of amendments have so far been submitted, with Labour’s Yvette Cooper attempting to take No Deal off the table (meaning Article 50 would be extended until a deal had been agreed upon) and Hilary Benn calling for indicative votes on four Brexit options. However, the amendment that has caused the most

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Theresa May is using Jeremy Corbyn to avoid blame for her Brexit mess

The Commons has grown rather used to Theresa May giving an update on Brexit each Monday afternoon, and still more used to the Prime Minister offering precious little in the way of new information each time she does so. Today’s statement was a little different, in that May is now asking MPs for more information, rather than MPs turning on her and accusing her of not telling them anything. She laboured rather heavily on the point that Jeremy Corbyn has so far refused to attend the cross-party talks designed to work out an agreement that the Commons can stomach, introducing it early in her statement, and returning to the point

Steerpike Steerpike

Dominic Grieve’s constitutional crisis

Backbench MP and arch-Remainer Dominic Grieve shocked political observers this weekend, when it was revealed that he is planning to take control of the parliamentary timetable to allow a coalition of 300 MPs (less than a majority) to introduce legislation to block a no-deal Brexit. If he succeeds, the former Attorney General will overturn centuries of precedent and completely upend Britain’s unwritten constitution which says that whoever wins an election, gets control over introducing legislation in the Commons. Speaking on Radio 4, Grieve defended his plot by saying that his controversial amendment still required a majority to pass into law: ‘No business of the House can be decided without a majority.

Robert Peston Robert Peston

The Prime Minister’s Brexit plans are all the same: run the clock down to 29 March

The Prime Minister’s plans B, C , D and E are all the same: run the clock as close as possible to 29 March, Brexit Day, so that enough of the critics to her Brexit plan blink at the risk of either crashing out with no deal or seeing Brexit cancelled such that it passes at the last. In two words, the Brexit strategy is ‘Tick Tock’. Yesterday’s conference-call cabinet meeting was a masterclass in Theresa May as bulldozer and ministers ‘sitting back’, according to one of them. She outlined as her preferred course the only approach that stands a chance of keeping her party together, which I’ve been reporting

Anthony Browne

The problem with backing out of Brexit

Are we suffering a national humiliation? There has been a lot of commentary – not least from elements of the Remain-supporting press – about how the UK has become an international laughing stock. Papers in other countries have joined in the chuckling. Recent events have not been good for our reputation for stability and sanity. However, the one thing that the UK could do to destroy what international credibility it has left, is to change its mind on Brexit, and go back to the EU asking whether we can stay after all. Our national humiliation would be complete. We would be the employee who stormed out publicly, insisting to everyone

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The message behind Labour’s latest party broadcast

When Labour released the party political broadcast Our Town, it was enough to worry aides in No.10. The slick video saw the party zone in on voters in towns that had voted heavily to Leave. Filmed in areas including Mansfield, the video sent a clear message: Jeremy Corbyn is on a mission to appeal to the Brexit voters on whom the Tories now rely. Last week, the party released the next video in that series, Our Country. Although Corbyn’s confidence vote against the government stole the limelight at the time of release, the video does shed some light on how Labour plans to fight the next election (ideally this year):

Sunday

Nikki Da Costa

Grieve’s Brexit amendment could destabilise British government for years to come

How can backbenchers take back control of Brexit? The latest plan is by Dominic Grieve who would (according to leaks) amend it to the Prime Minister’s new mystery Brexit plan which is being put to a vote on 29 January. As you might expect from Grieve, a QC, it’s well put-together. It identifies a weak point in Britain’s constitutional architecture, and proposes to take a shot. If he hits his target, it might not just take down Brexit but a whole lot more besides. His amendment does not advocate for a particular policy, only against no deal. The Commons gave parliament permission for no-deal when it endorsed Article 50, so

James Forsyth James Forsyth

May goes back to the backstop

Today’s Cabinet conference call was more illuminating in terms of direction of travel than the details of what Theresa May is actually going to do. It is now clear that May’s approach is to try and put the Tory DUP alliance back together by getting something on the backstop rather than trying to find some cross party consensus. One of the reasons for this is that the Labour leadership’s reluctance to play ball makes it very hard to get the numbers for any compromise deal. I am told that David Lidington, who had been leading the cross party talks, reluctantly acknowledged this point. As one Cabinet Minister put it to

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Are Tory Brexiteers slowly coming round to May’s Brexit deal?

After Theresa May’s Brexit deal was defeated by 230 votes in the Commons last week, there was speculation that May would lean towards a softer Brexit in order to get a deal through. Despite holding a series of cross-party talks in this vein, that now looks unlikely. As James reports on Coffee House, May is expected to announce that she will continue to seek backstop concessions in a bid to win back Tory and DUP support. Given the level of Brexiteer opposition to May’s deal, that may seem like a long shot. But it’s worth noting that in recent days, leading Leave MPs appear to have softened their opposition to

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Brexit manoeuvres under scrutiny

Liam Fox – Remain MPs are trying to ‘steal Brexit’ With the government in severe difficulties after a week which saw Theresa May’s Brexit withdrawal agreement rejected by the largest margin in Parliamentary history, politicians are now exploring how to break the deadlock before the UK officially leaves the EU on 29th March. Speaking to Andrew Marr, the International Trade Secretary condemned parliamentarians hoping to take advantage of the current stalemate to try and hinder or reverse the referendum result: <iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/afHr_MXzcso” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe> LF: You’ve got a Leave population and a Remain Parliament. Parliament has not got the right to hijack the

Saturday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Liz Truss Edition

27 min listen

Katy Balls talks to Liz Truss, chief secretary to the Treasury, about her shameful Lib Dem past, why she loves cheese, and how The Thick Of It made her life harder.

Richard Walton

Sajid Javid made the right call on the Isis ‘Beatles’

The High Court yesterday rejected a challenge over the Government’s decision to share evidence with the US about two alleged members of the Isis Beatles, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey. Crucially, ministers had provided this evidence without seeking assurances that the pair will not face the death penalty. The judgement by the Lord Chief Justice in this judicial review is important and will be welcomed with relief by the detectives working on the case at the counter terrorism command at Scotland Yard, the CPS lawyers and ministers at the Home Office. Had the Government lost, the Home Secretary’s decision not to seek assurances on the death penalty from the US would have

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why a customs union is looking less likely

Immediately after the government’s crushing defeat on Tuesday night, a slew of Cabinet Ministers thought that it was inevitable that Theresa May would have to make some kind of concession on the customs union to get a deal through parliament. But, as I say in The Sun this morning, this option has run into two obstacles. First, Corbyn and McDonnell aren’t playing ball. Without their blessing, there is no way you could get 116 Labour MPs to vote with a Tory PM. Secondly, it has become clear that agreeing to a customs union would not only split the Tory party, lead to at least one Cabinet resignation, but would also—according