Politics Archives

Monday

9 Jul 2018

Steerpike

The next Brexit Secretary: runners and riders

David Davis had left DexEU – and taken most of his colleagues with him. Steve Baker – junior minister– at the Brexit department has resigned and there are rumours Suella Braverman could also quit. So, with a growing Brexit rebellion brewing, Theresa May’s next move is pivotal. Who will replace Davis? No-one: The department for Exiting the European Union has been repeatedly sidelined by No 10. There’s a chance that Theresa May will respond by merging that department into another – the Cabinet Office or the Foreign Office. However, the optics of closing the Department for Brexit at a time when critics say the Brexit dream has died would not

Tom Goodenough

David Davis breaks his silence on his resignation

David Davis has broken his silence on his resignation. Unsurprisingly his comments on the Today programme are devastating for Theresa May’s Brexit strategy. The now-departed Brexit secretary said his position was no longer tenable because he simply didn’t believe in the PM’s approach. In his resignation letter last night, he had said that ‘that the national interest requires a Secretary of State in my Department that is an enthusiastic believer in the approach, and not merely a reluctant conscript’. He went further on the Today programme, calling the PM’s approach a ‘dangerous strategy’. What is worrying for May is not only that Davis himself couldn’t get behind May’s approach but also that he

Steerpike

David Davis’s special adviser lashes out

Oh dear. At one point this weekend, it seemed as though Theresa May had pulled off a blinder – getting her Cabinet Brexiteers to sign up to her soft Brexit plan. Not so anymore after Davis Davis resigned late last night. And it seems, Davis and his band of Brexiteers are not about to make life easy for their Remain-minded colleagues in the Tory party. Steve Baker has followed Davis in resigning from DexEU. As for Davis’s special adviser and former MP Stewart Jackson? Well, he spent last night lashing out at journalists and MPs. Responding to his former colleague Sarah Wollaston – a Tory Remain rebel – complaining about

Theresa May

Theresa May’s reply to David Davis: 12 reasons why Brexit is safe.

Dear David, Thank you for your letter explaining your decision to resign as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. I am sorry that you have chosen to leave the Government when we have already made so much progress towards delivering a smooth and successful Brexit, and when we are only eight months from the date set in law when the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. At Chequers on Friday, we as the Cabinet agreed a comprehensive and detailed proposal which provides a precise, responsible, and credible basis for progressing our negotiations towards a new relationship between the UK and the EU after we leave in March.

David Davis-Mp

David Davis’ resignation letter

There have been a significant number of occasions in the last year or so on which I have disagreed with the Number 10 policy line – ranging from accepting the Commission’s sequencing of negotiations through to the language on Northern Ireland in the December Joint Report. At each stage, I have accepted collective responsibility because it is part of my task to find workable compromises, and because I considered it was still possible to deliver on the mandate of the referendum, and on our manifesto commitment to leave the Customs Union and the Single Market. I am afraid that I think the current trend of policy and tactics is making that look less

Sunday

8 Jul 2018

Chris Key

Don’t blame Cameron for the government’s Brexit mess

I listened to the Coffee House podcast about Danny Dyer’s David Cameron rant. Fraser Nelson appears to live in a parallel universe. It is true that Cameron probably expected to be in a coalition with the Lib Dems again in 2015 and to never have to fulfil the promise of an EU referendum. However it is absurd to lay the blame for the government’s disastrous handling of Brexit negotiations at Cameron’s door. After all, was it David Cameron or Theresa May who triggered Article 50 with no clear negotiating plan? Was it David Cameron or Theresa May who called a snap election in a fit of hubris only to lose

James Forsyth

Why David Davis resigned

The Brexit Secretary David Davis has quit. Davis’s resignation is the biggest political crisis that Theresa May has faced since the loss of her majority in the general election and leaves her facing a battle to save her premiership. Davis has gone because he could not stomach the opening UK negotiating position agreed at Chequers. Davis has long been clear that he wanted a final deal that was, essentially, a souped-up version of the Canada free trade deal. But the position agreed at Chequers envisaged a relationship very different to that, one far more firmly in the EU’s regulatory orbit. As Brexit Secretary Davis was meant to promote the Chequers

Steerpike

Moggmentum reaches the Commons

Although Moggmentum has been building for some time among the Tory grassroots, conventional wisdom dictates that Jacob Rees-Mogg is still very unlikely to make it to No 10 – no matter how enthusiastic the members – thanks to the fact that he doesn’t have the support of enough Tory MPs to get onto the ballot paper in the first place. However, is a change a coming? Mr S only asks after Theresa May’s soft Brexit proposal appeared to get a number of Tory MPs wondering who would do a better job. Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Andrew Bridgen – the outspoken Brexiteer and member of the European Research Group

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Michael Gove – Chequers Brexit deal will honour the referendum result

After an away day at Chequers on Friday, the Cabinet has finally agreed on a compromise approach for negotiating the UK’s future Brexit deal. The proposals include a ‘free trade area for goods’, a joint institutional framework for the European Court of Justice and a ‘common rulebook’ to maintain high regulatory standards in a variety of areas. Environment Secretary Michael Gove, a prominent member of the official Leave Campaign, joined Andrew Marr to express why he felt his fellow Conservatives should now back the government’s new strategy: AM: Is your message to those colleagues wondering about what to do next – ‘This isn’t perfect… but it is by far the

James Forsyth

How much more unpalatable will the EU make this deal?

From the flurry of joint op-eds from Cabinet Ministers today, you might be forgiven for thinking that the Chequers deal is the deal. But, of course, it is not. Rather, it is the UK’s government opening position in the negotiation on the future relationship. So, logically, you would expect the government to have to make more concessions. The problem for the ministerial Brexiteers is that what the EU is likely to demand will make the deal much more difficult to defend. Take, for instance, parliament’s role in having to pass any changes to the so-called ‘common rulebook’ between the UK and the EU. Number 10 likes to talk about this

Charles Moore

Why won’t the BBC call ‘Mexico’s Corbyn’ a populist?

The career of the new President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (‘Amlo’), suggests he is a populist. He jumps from party to party and ends up founding his own. He advocates price ceilings for tortillas. Disputing his defeat in the presidential election of 2006, he proclaims himself ‘legitimate President’, wearing a presidential sash. Yet the BBC — with the honourable exception of Justin Webb on Today — avoids calling Amlo a populist, attributing the word only to his enemies (‘His critics call him a cheap populist’). This contrasts with its ready application of the word to Trump, Orban and Salvini. Amlo, of course, is left-wing, and the three just mentioned are

Saturday

7 Jul 2018

Robert Peston

How Theresa May trounced the Brexiteers

Tory MPs and ministers have consistently under-estimated their leader. What Theresa May achieved at Chequers yesterday was extraordinary. She persuaded her cabinet to sign up for a Brexit plan that drives a coach and horses through what the Brexiters in her team – especially Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – said Brexit was all about, during that historic referendum campaign. What is more, at Chequers yesterday, Gove was a cheerleader for a plan that would enshrine in treaty what is supposedly anathema to his Brexit cause – that the UK now and forever would be subject to European Union rules and regulations governing the quality and safety of the goods

James Forsyth

The reason May’s third way won approval? Cabinet Brexiteers have no alternative plan

Theresa May is through Chequers with a plan that proposes having the UK follow EU rules on goods and agri-foods. This isn’t what the Cabinet’s Brexiteers would have expected two years ago, or even nine months ago. But as I say in The Sun this morning, the biggest single reason they are putting up with this is that they don’t have an alternative plan. When Boris Johnson invited the Cabinet’s Brexiteers plus Gavin Williamson and Sajid Javid, who were pivotal to the Brexiter inner Cabinet’s rejection of Theresa May’s new customs partnership plan, to his office for a meeting on Wednesday morning it only highlighted the group’s problems. First, Javid

Charles Moore

Brexit isn’t the cause of High Street woes

As someone who follows the news on Radio 4 at 6, 7 and 8 each morning, I notice that the bulletins begin very leftish and become slightly less so later. I assume the unit responsible, ‘Newsgathering’, works through the night from its default political position. So it relies heavily on the ready supply of ‘news’ from pressure groups, NGOs and right-on charities: ‘A new report warns that millions will die unless the government immediately injects £400 billion into X’; ‘A survey by an independent, Brussels-based think tank reveals that independent, Brussels-based think tanks believe that Brexit will be a disaster for Britain’. As actual news gets going, this dreary propaganda

Friday

6 Jul 2018

Katy Balls

Cabinet back Theresa May’s soft Brexit plan. How will Brussels respond?

Theresa May’s Cabinet away day is finally over and the Prime Minister can go to sleep safe in the knowledge that there have been no resignations… yet. In a No 10 statement this evening, May said the Cabinet had agreed its collective position for the Brexit negotiations – for a common rule book on industrial goods and agricultural products. This means the UK would have to in effect follow EU rules in these sectors: ‘Our proposal will create a U.K. – EU free trade area which establishes a common rule book for industrial goods and agricultural products. This maintains high standards in these areas, but we will also ensure that no

Ross Clark

The tragedy of the Brexit Chequers summit

Today has been so bigged-up as a day of destiny for Britain that it can only deliver disappointment. Even if we do have white smoke rising from the chimneys of Chequers by the end of the day, together with a photo full of strained smiles as the Chancellor and Foreign Secretary apparently agree on a blueprint for Brexit full of delicate compromises and trade-offs, why does anyone think that Michel Barnier and his team will give the nod to what is agreed? It is remarkable how little this matter has been raised over the last few days. We have had endless speculation on the internal politics of the cabinet. We

Brendan O’Neill

Theresa May’s Brexit plan is Remain by another name

Stop it. Stop saying we can’t be sure why people voted for Brexit. Stop saying it was just a screech of rage against politicians and so must now be tempered and made into sensible policy. Stop saying it’s fine for Theresa May in her Chequers showdown to ‘soften’ Brexit and keep us entangled in a customs union, and even in the European Court of Justice, because we don’t know if people really want to leave these institutions. This is all untrue. We know very well why people voted for Brexit, and we know that what May is offering is a betrayal of what they voted for. It is testament to

Steerpike

Nigel Farage offers May a Brexit incentive

Theresa May has come under some pressure these last few weeks over her plan for Britain’s post Brexit trade relationship. Both wings of her party have aggressively pitched their preferred version. Today it’s crunch time as the Cabinet head to Chequers to thrash out a position. But has the most convincing argument for the Brexiteer side only just aired? With rumours circling that May is to pitch a soft Brexit, Nigel Farage has threatened a comeback. The former Ukip leader has warned that he will have ‘no choice’ but to return to frontline politics if Brexit is delayed past March 2019. I’ll have no choice but to return to frontline

Thursday

5 Jul 2018

Peter Jones

Rhetorical questioning

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has given all his cabinet a copy of Cicero’s advice on how to win arguments. This is a very foolish move. ‘Rhetoric’ (same root as ‘orator’), or persuasive speaking, was the name of this activity. In the 4th century bc, Aristotle produced the definitive guide in his Art of Rhetoric, from which most of Cicero’s advice is drawn. His top tips included: work from the general (is this good in principle?) to the specific (is this example of it practical?). Examine any course of action under four headings: is it possible? Necessary? Advantageous? Honourable (i.e. just, moral, etc.)? Set up arguments from evidence, logic, likelihood, maxims

The Spectator

Letters | 5 July 2018

Technical issues Sir: Martin Vander Weyer’s supposition that car manufacturers are holding back investment due to Brexit seems to be wishful thinking (Any other business, 30 June). Having worked for years for one of the largest international vehicle manufacturers in both finance and export, I can assure him that the investment cycle is almost entirely to do with the product and almost not at all with political concerns. Car manufacturers, and particularly German ones, are faced with several serious issues which have nothing to do with Brexit. The diesel emissions manipulation issue and whether diesel engines are acceptable will impact on their decisions about petrol vs diesel engine lines, and the likely