Politics

The “People’s Vote” is celebrating the judgement by the European Court of Justice that Britain could unilaterally revoke Article 50 at any point up until 29 March next year and remain in the EU under existing terms. It destroys the argument that Michael Gove made last weekend: that reversing our decision to stay in the EU would lead to vastly inferior terms, the loss of Britain’s rebate and so on. And while the government still describes the judgement as hypothetical, it will also heap huge pressure on Theresa May if she loses tomorrow’s seemingly doomed vote on her withdrawal bill. Like it or not, she will have to fend off

Hats off to Ross Clark for his timely highlighting of the perils of a Corbyn-led government. For those who remember the 1970s, the spectre of an unreconstructed far-left socialist and his acolyte ensconced as neighbours in Downing Street is a terrifying yet wearyingly predictable scenario. Unfettered by opposition, they would see Britain’s economy as being ripe for experimentation. Some of Corbyn’s policy pronouncements which are already in the public domain are alarming enough. Even more concerning should be the as yet unuttered thoughts lurking in the corners of Corbynista minds; the authoritarian student politics and divisive dogma. If Corbyn is elected, we can look forward to a huge amount of

Anyone looking at the Independent’s front page the other day – or at least its electronic mock-up, made primarily for social media and TV paper reviews – will have seen a bombshell of a headline: ‘Illegal Facebook spending “won 2016 vote for Leave”’. That’s a seismic claim if it can be confirmed: the once-in-a-generation vote to leave the EU was won through what we now know was an illegal overspend of £500,000 or so. Except the Independent adopted an old newspaper trick: the biggest news is in quotes, suggesting that it’s not the newspaper claiming it, but rather someone else. At first, that someone looks credible. It is from a

An Oxford professor’s claim that it was “very likely” that  overspending by Vote Leave swung the referendum for Brexit has taken off like wildfire. Professor Philip Howard’s analysis made the front page of yesterday’s Independent under the headline: ‘Illegal Facebook spending ‘won 2016 vote for Leave”. So do the numbers behind the headline add up? Prof Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, calculated that: Around 80 million Facebook users saw the Vote Leave campaign ads on social media during the period of excess spending; 10 per cent of users clicked through; 10 per cent of those users switched their vote as a result, giving over 800,000 switched voters. This argument