Politics

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

Isabel Hardman

Corbyn makes May pay the price for her austerity pledge

Jeremy Corbyn had the easiest lead into Prime Minister’s Questions today, and he didn’t squander it. He’d had a week to prepare, too, as Theresa May had offered him the lead last Wednesday when she told the Tory conference that austerity is over. So Corbyn took her line and applied it to mental health, policing, schools, local government and the treatment of disabled people.  His questions were long but good: they started with a retort to May’s answer on the previous topic before moving onto a new area and asking: ‘when will austerity end for’ this service. It was effective, not just because it highlighted the number of areas where

Steerpike

Watch: Ken Clarke calls Brexiteers ‘right wing nationalists’

Oh dear. In a sure sign that tensions are flaring as the Brexit deal is finalised, Tory MP Ken Clarke has taken a leaf out of Ken Livingstone’s book when it comes to making Nazi comparisons. Speaking today at Prime Minister’s Questions, the ardent Remainer struck a hysteric note as he asked Theresa May how she would get her Brexit vote through the House of Commons. Arguing that May needed the support of pro-EU backbenchers on both sides of the political spectrum for her bill to succeed, he exclaimed to a chorus of boos: Which would reveal that the hard-line Eurosceptic views of the Bennites on the Labour front bench and

Charles Moore

Is Scotland getting bored with Nicola Sturgeon’s nationalism?

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, is not stupid, and there are signs in her annual party conference this week that she realises she pushed things too hard. Instead of clamouring for a second Scottish independence referendum, she has now switched to calling for a second Brexit referendum first. Nationalism within a wider nation, such as Scotland’s or Catalonia’s, does well when it expresses revolt, but hits a ceiling when it tries to take full independence. The classic example is Quebec, which has flirted with independence for nearly half a century. Now, as Ms Sturgeon will be uneasily aware, Quebec has become bored with its nationalists. The Parti Québécois won only

Robert Peston

Theresa May’s Brexit backstop breakthrough

I am hearing that the PM’s Brexit advisor Olly Robbins has made meaningful progress in talks with the EU’s negotiator Michel Barnier on that contentious “backstop”, or insurance policy to keep open the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland pending agreement on a permanent long-term trading relationship that achieves the same. Depending on who I talk with, there’s either been a breakthrough or things are moving in the right direction. My sense therefore is that it would be premature to crack open the champagne bottles, but maybe a half-bottle should be on ice. The most important development would be that the EU seems close to agreeing that the backstop

The price of the SNP’s Brexit strategy

Nicola Sturgeon’s indication that SNP MPs will back a second vote on Brexit might be clever politics but it is likely to stir up further animosity among English voters towards the Scots. Consider the Future of England survey, which shows that 88 per cent of English Leave voters (and 52 per cent of all English voters) would accept the break-up of the UK so long as England leaves the EU. Some might suggest that the poll is further evidence of the Little Englander mentality that will ineluctably drive the Scots to secede from the Union. But does it instead reveal something else? Perhaps, it would seem, English voters are getting as tired

Isabel Hardman

Why Chris Williamson really is happy about facing deselection

Oh, what a delicious twist in the internal bickering of the Labour party. Chris Williamson, an MP who has spent the past few months touring the country campaigning for the mandatory reselection of his colleagues – or, as he prefers to brand it, a ‘democracy roadshow’ campaigning for all MPs to go through an ‘open selection’ from their local party every electoral cycle – is being threatened with deselection himself. Williamson finds himself a target after launching into a row with the trade unions at last month’s Labour conference. The unions blocked plans for open selections, and instead went for a change in the party’s rules that makes trigger ballots

Katy Balls

Dominic Raab’s tricky first day back in the office

When Dominic Raab took up the post of Brexit Secretary in the wake of David Davis’s resignation over Chequers, a number of Tory MPs were surprised by his decision (see Geoffrey Cox for reasons to take Cabinet jobs). Some Brexiteers thought that Raab ought to have proved his Leave credentials and said no given the terms of Theresa May’s soft Brexit blueprint. Others couldn’t work out why the job appealed to an ambitious rising star given that it was by all accounts a hospital pass. Today’s Brexit statement in the Commons went some way to providing evidence for the latter point. With Theresa May lukewarm on the idea of giving

Isabel Hardman

Who can Philip Hammond blame for a tight Budget?

Cabinet ministers toddled up Downing Street this morning in a largely good mood. Most of them were relieved that last week’s Conservative conference hadn’t been the catastrophe that everyone had expected, and many were even happier that the conference had closed with Theresa May declaring that austerity is over. Of course, one of their number will be feeling rather less comfortable with that: Philip Hammond will now have to sift through even more bids from his ministerial colleagues for more funding, now that they believe they could be in line for the dividends of the end of austerity. The Chancellor now needs to work out a way of fobbing off

Brendan O’Neill

The staggering hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton | 9 October 2018

Today Hillary Clinton slammed the Tories for failing to join the recent pile-on against Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban. In a speech described by the Guardian as ‘stinging’, Clinton said it was ‘disheartening’ that Conservative MEPs in Brussels voted to ‘shield Viktor Orban from censure’. She was referring to the 18 Tories in the European Parliament who last month rejected the invoking of the punishing Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty against Orban’s Hungary for being a prejudiced and illiberal state. Hungary is no longer a real democracy but an ‘illiberal’ one, said Clinton — and it’s shameful that Tories are cosying up with such a regime. It’s hard to

Stephen Daisley

Nicola Sturgeon’s cynical Brexit position

Nicola Sturgeon rides to the rescue. That’s how the more excitable Remainers are billing the SNP leader’s eleventh-hour intervention on Brexit. And it is eleventh-hour, for Sturgeon has been vacillating on the issue for months now. She instinctively believes in EU membership, but independence not Brexit is still the foremost dividing line in Scottish politics. Since 1988 the SNP’s policy has been ‘independence in Europe’. For much of the past thirty years, that position has gone unchallenged, except at the margins and among the old timers for whom sovereignty, rather than the autonomous interdependence of the EU, remained the goal. Among the party membership, now standing at 125,000, Brexiteers are

Steerpike

David Davis de-dramatises his Brexit rhetoric

David Davis has caused a stir this afternoon after he sent a letter to Tory MPs claiming the Conservatives ‘will lose the next election’ if Theresa May continues with Chequers. The former Brexit Secretary claims the consequences will be ‘dire’. Although Mr S suspects this is not what No 10 would have had in mind for the first day back after the recess, Downing Street can take heart that Davis’s rhetoric appears to have actually softened slightly. Back in June, Davis warned the Brexit inner Cabinet that if Britain is under the backstop at the time of the next election not only would the Tories suffer defeat – it would

Steerpike

The DUP trolls ‘Michelle Barnier’

When the DUP reached a confidence and supply agreement with Theresa May in 2017 – and managed to extract a £1b bung from the government – commentators noted that after years fighting their corner during the Troubles, the party had a formidable amount of experience when it came to negotiation. Now, as Arlene Foster goes to Brussels for three intense meetings with Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, could their strategies be coming into play? Mr S notes that in a press release last night which announced the visit, the DUP mis-spelt the EU Chief Negotiator’s name, billing him as the rather more feminine ‘Michelle Barnier’. The DUP mispells EU Brexit negotiator's

Katy Balls

Why the DUP should worry Theresa May more than the European Research Group

Just over twelve hours after Arlene Foster released a statement which appeared to suggest the DUP were ready to fudge their red lines on the Irish border, the party leader popped up on BBC Ulster to make clear that this is not the case. In an interview this morning, Foster said ‘there cannot be any barriers between ourselves and the rest of the United Kingdom’: BBC: Would you entertain checks being applied to goods being imported from Great Britain? AF: No because there are many instances as to when… if you take someone getting goods in Northern Ireland coming from Great Britain those would be checked as they come into

James Forsyth

Have the DUP just softened their Brexit position?

The next ten days are key for the prospects of a Brexit deal. By the end of dinner next Wednesday night, we’ll know whether the EU and Britain are getting close enough to strike a withdrawal agreement in November, or if they are heading for no-deal. In the run-up to this, things are going to be particularly febrile. In this climate, it would be all too easy to over-interpret Jean-Claude Juncker’s May-esque dancing or (as spotted by an eagle-eyed FT journalist) Olly Robbins’s early evening glass of red wine. The Irish border still remains the biggest obstacle to a withdrawal agreement. I understand that one source of tension between Number 10

Brett Kavanaugh and the death of white liberalism

This article was originally published on Spectator USA. With the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court has a solidly conservative majority for the first time since the New Deal. Just how conservative this new majority is remains to be seen: Chief Justice John Roberts disappointed the Republican right when he voted to uphold the legality of Obamacare in 2012. But if Roberts is no Antonin Scalia (the paragon of what most conservatives look for in a justice), he is no Anthony Kennedy, either. And with two of the four liberal justices on the court in their 80s, the prospect of a 6-3 or even 7-2 conservative majority is not

Is Taylor Swift the Democrats’ answer to Trump?

I understand how America’s Republican teens will be feeling this morning, which is to say very hurt indeed. Taylor Swift has revealed herself to be a Democrat and the news will take some getting over. For years the singer had been the slam dunk winner in any argument about the impossibility of being both culturally relevant and right-leaning in modern America. Yes, the Dems have pretty much every star of stage and screen behind their cause, but the right had Swift, the biggest star on the planet, the ace in the pack, on theirs. Take that, libs! Why did the right think Swift was on their side? Well, because back

The flaws in Labour’s plan for a four day week

Free university for students. Free shares in your company. And now plenty of free time, with one day less in the office or the factory every week. The shadow chancellor John McDonnell hasn’t quite gotten around to promising free Krispy Kreme doughnuts in every shopping mall, abolishing fees for Sky Sports, or handing out Uber vouchers for everyone. But heck, there are still at least three years to go until the next election. It may only be a matter of time. McDonnell’s latest wheeze for buying more votes is a half-promise to reduce the.standard working week from five days to four. Apparently, with the rise of artificial intelligence, and the onwards