Politics Archives

Wednesday

10 Oct 2018

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

Tuesday

9 Oct 2018

Andrew Willshire

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

Steerpike

Where’s the outrage over Shaun Bailey’s slur on ‘cheeky’ boys?

Much outrage this afternoon over the Tories’ mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey. In a pamphlet for the Centre for Policy Studies think tank in 2005 on his experiences as a youth worker in West London, Bailey wrote that ‘good looking’ girls in the area ‘tend to have been around’. Since those quotes were published by Buzzfeed, critics have been quick to call out Bailey over his sexist comments. But the question that’s bugging Mr S is: why no similar outrage about what Bailey said about boys? In that same pamphlet, Bailey wrote that the ‘cheeky’ boys are those who are the most likely to have ‘been around’: ‘I say to the

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

Monday

8 Oct 2018

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

Steerpike

Watch: Juncker mocks May

Just last week Donald Tusk took to social media to claim that the EU’s offer to the UK a ‘Canada+++’ deal was a mark of respect. Only the EU council leader failed to find space in his tweet to make clear that this offer only applied to Great Britain – not Northern Ireland. Now it’s Jean-Claude Juncker’s turn to show how he pays the UK respect. In a speech to the Committee of the Regions, the European Commission president appeared to do his best impression of Theresa May’s Dancing Queen turn at conference: Is this @JunckerEU mocking @theresa_may 's Abba dance at a speech to the Committee of the Regions?

Daniel McCarthy

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

D Reilly

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

Matthew Lynn

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

Sunday

7 Oct 2018

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: John McDonnell clashes with the former head of MI6

Sir Richard Dearlove – I’m ‘troubled by Corbyn’s past’ The former head of MI6 has expressed concern about the Labour leader’s previous links to several unsavoury political groups. Speaking to Sophy Ridge, Sir Richard Dearlove outlined why he felt uneasy about the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Prime Minister: "Someone coming from my background is troubled by @jeremycorbyn's past associations. Some of which I find surprising, and worrying. He may have abandoned them now, but I don’t think you can entirely dump your past." says the former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove #Ridge pic.twitter.com/J9gWgVR8K2 — Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge (@SkyPoliticsHub) October 7, 2018 RD: Someone coming from my

Steerpike

Jeremy Wright’s football fail

Is Jeremy Wright the new David Cameron? By that, Mr S does not mean to suggest that Wright is the man to go on to win a majority for the Tories at the next general election. Instead, Steerpike’s concern relates to football. During Cameron’s time in No 10, there was a running joke that despite his claims to the contrary, Dave wasn’t much of a football fan. Despite claiming he was an Aston Villa fan, Cameron later said he supported West Ham United. The new Culture Secretary is showing signs of suffering from a similar condition. In an interview with Sophy Ridge this morning, Wright said that he was particularly

Saturday

6 Oct 2018

James Forsyth

Ending austerity won’t be as simple as May made it sound

It was the line in her conference speech that demonstrated Theresa May’s desire to stay on as Prime Minister after Brexit. But it was also the line that will cause her the most trouble. I say in The Sun this morning that May’s declaration that austerity is over will cause problems even if the Tories couldn’t have fought another election on austerity. First of all, they have already pledged to spend an extra £20 billion on the NHS. At the time, many senior Tories regarded this as the party making a choice to spend ‘the proceeds of growth’ on the health service. But by now announcing the end of austerity,

Charles Moore

Boris’s critics are helping his cause

There are, one must admit, things to be said against Boris Johnson, but his leading critics do not understand that their attacks assist him. On Tuesday in Birmingham, Mrs May tried to upstage his arrival by claiming she had a new policy about post-Brexit immigration. She didn’t. The only person she upstaged was her Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, who should have been left alone to speak about a subject which, both by his job and his background, is his. Boris was boosted by her hostility, and people listened to his wide-ranging speech. His opponents must understand his subversive power instead of being pompous about it. He is clever. A classic