Politics

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

Friday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Theresa May turns the tables on Nicola Sturgeon over a second referendum

Although Nicola Sturgeon has said a second independence referendum is ‘highly likely’, a recent poll suggests that the Scottish people are inclined to disagree. Earlier this year, a Panelbase survey found that support for a second independence referendum before the UK leaves the EU is at just 27 per cent. What’s more, the majority of Scots — including some who back independence — are not in favour of a second referendum within the next year or two. This is why both the SNP and the Tories are currently at pains to blame the other side for any future referendum. Of late, Nicola Sturgeon and her SNP colleagues have been doing their best to stress

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Labour’s membership drop is great news for the party

Were I a Labour party strategist I wouldn’t be too distressed by the news that the party has lost 26,000 members since last summer. On the contrary, I would regard it as the possible beginning of a very long road back to power. Until Jeremy Corbyn came along there was a received wisdom that modern political parties were becoming isolated from the views of the public as a whole because their once mass memberships had shrunk to a few party faithful. Not only has Corbyn disproved this theory, his experience suggests that the opposite might be the case: having a large membership is a hindrance to winning elections. If driving

Steerpike Steerpike

Question Time audience member on EU nationals: ‘Who would be serving our coffee in Pret?’

Oh dear. After the Lords rebellion this week on the status of EU nationals in the UK post Brexit, the issue looks set to continue to be a thorn in the government’s side. As Theresa May attempts to hold firm that it is a matter for the negotiations, one Question Time audience member on last night’s show from Bedford attempted to express her concerns over a Britain without EU nationals. Alas, her comments soon hit a bum note when she appeared to imply that the reason EU nationals should be allowed to work in the UK is so that British people get their coffee on time: ‘For anyone who works in London: who would

Steerpike Steerpike

Campaign in Copeland? I get car sick, says Labour MP

So far, Labour’s by-election defeat in Copeland has been blamed on everything from Tony Blair to a lack of Labour voters owning cars. However, on last night’s Question Time, Dawn Butler came up with an excuse even Mr S hadn’t heard before. Discussing the by-election which saw Labour lose the one-time safe seat to the Tories, the MP for Brent Central explained to David Dimbleby that she hadn’t actually been able to go up to campaign as she… gets car sick: DB: I didn’t go to Copeland as I suffer from car sickness and I heard the roads are really bad. But I did a lot of phone… DD: That doesn’t sound

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Why the Commons should listen to the Lords

Peers haven’t made themselves popular by voting for an amendment to the Government’s Article 50 bill. They’ve been called ‘contemptible’, accused of an ‘insidious plot to thwart democracy‘ and threatened with abolition. But is there a chance they were right to try and make MPs think again? That’s the argument made in the Times this morning, which says in its editorial that if you felt uncomfortable watching unelected peers meddling with the business of elected MPs there’s a simple reason: the peers had a point. The role of the Lords is to ‘request that the Commons should further reflect’, says the Times. And in calling for MPs to think again on the Article 50

Thursday

The Spectator

Carry on, Major

As Prime Minister, John Major was intolerant of opposition from within the Conservative party over the EU — memorably calling Maastricht rebels ‘bastards’. It was unwise, and the bad blood it created within his party has been swirling around ever since. Now that the tables have turned and Sir John now finds himself the rebellious outsider on Europe, it is tempting for those on the Conservative party’s Eurosceptic wing, who for so long were denounced as freaks, fruitcakes and swivel–eyed loons, to take the same approach. Their instinct is to denounce Sir John, Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke and others as dinosaurs seeking to deny the will of the British people. A

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The Left’s great Russian conspiracy theory

The chattering classes have officially lost it. On both sides of the Atlantic. Of course they’d been teetering on the cliff edge of sanity for a while, following the bruising of their beloved EU by 17m angry Brits and Hillary’s loss to that orange muppet they thought no one except rednecks would vote for. But now they’ve gone over. They’re falling fast. They’re speeding away from the world of logic into a cesspit of conspiracy and fear. It’s tragic. Or hilarious. One or the other. Exhibit A: this week’s New Yorker. It’s mad. It captures wonderfully how the liberal-left has come to be polluted by the paranoid style of McCarthyist thinking

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Can John McDonnell’s ‘tea offensive’ finally bring Labour together?

What is Labour’s priority at the moment? Normally the sensible answer for an Opposition party would be that it needs to focus on policy, and particularly on talking about next week’s Budget. But it is very difficult for a party polling so far behind the one in government and that is so divided to have much authority when it criticises ministers on policy. So when John McDonnell gave his pre-Budget speech today, his focus couldn’t just be on what he expects Philip Hammond to get up to and what Labour would want from the forthcoming economic statement. The speech itself wasn’t about Labour’s divisions, of course: McDonnell set out plans

Ed West Ed West

The hypocrisy of pro-Union Brexiteers

There’s something quite romantic about the idea of a real border between Scotland and England, which a government minister warns will be the result of Scottish independence. Maybe we could have an India-Pakistan style daily face-off, but with soldiers dressed as The Jocks and the Geordies. Or an old-fashioned war over the ‘debatable lands’, which hasn’t been seen since the Rough Wooing. As Alex Massie warns in this week’s cover story, voters in parts of Britain may soon have to endure yet another referendum, with a considerably weaker unionist case this time around: Neither May nor Sturgeon would choose to make their stands on this kind of terrain. But politics

Nick Hilton Nick Hilton

The Spectator podcast: Sturgeon’s second stab

On this week’s episode we question whether Nicola Sturgeon might be tempted by a second independence referendum, consider the increasingly frosty relations between the USA and Russia, and ask whether city dogs are a menace to sheep. First, Theresa May was in Scotland this week for meetings with Nicola Sturgeon ahead of Scottish Tory conference. Thanks to Brexit, the Scots appear to have another opportunity to try and go it alone, but with support for independence still routinely polling below 50 per cent, will she pull the trigger? Alex Massie joins the podcast to discuss the subject which he wrote his cover piece on, saying: “Britishness still matters to many Scots — but for

Douglas Murray

Where is the evidence that Donald Trump is an anti-Semite?

Several months ago, after his election victory, I asked for any proof that Donald Trump is – as some of his most mainstream critics were claiming – a vile homophobe. I thought it a perfectly reasonable question to ask, and the only evidence I was given in reply was one gay man in America who cried after the election.  This did not satisfy my standards of evidence.  But a related question now also needs asking.  Where is the proof that Donald Trump is an anti-Semite? I ask because in the last week there has been considerable, nay ecstatic, reporting of an accusation that the President of the USA is not

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: The Lords’ ‘insidious plot to thwart democracy’

When the House of Lords voted against the Government’s Brexit bill last night, peers won’t have been expecting much in the way of thanks in today’s newspapers. But the ferocity of the attacks on the Lords could still come as something of a surprise: it’s time for the Lords to go, says the Sun in its editorial this morning in which it accuses peers of trying to ‘hobble the PM’ in Brexit talks. The paper describes the Government’s defeat last night as ‘contemptible’ and ‘short-sighted grandstanding’, and says the session showed that Lords wanted to make it clear ‘how much they care about EU citizens’  -with no regard for British citizens

Steerpike Steerpike

Corbyn spinner’s disastrous trip to the pub

On your first day as a spin doctor for the opposition there are a few things that you probably shouldn’t do. Near the top of that list is going to the pub and asking a Muslim journalist if they are an Al Qaeda supporter. But that’s what Steve Howell did on Monday after starting his job as Jeremy Corbyn’s new deputy director of communications. Seumas Milne took his new colleague — and one-time Straight Left comrade — to the Red Lion for a post-work drink. Alas it proved to be a bit more dramatic than planned when guests from the Fabian Society’s ‘What now for Syria?’ Commons event flocked in. One of the speakers

Steerpike Steerpike

Nigel Farage’s stock rises – as Ukip’s falls

Today’s figures from the electoral commission show that between 1 October and 31 December 2016, Ukip raised only £33,228 in donations — just £3,228 more than the Women’s Equality Party. However, as the party struggle to attract capital post referendum, Mr S is pleased to report that it’s another story for former leader Nigel Farage. Although Farage once complained that he was poor for a politician, the latest European Parliament register of interests paints a different picture. With his new gigs on Fox News and LBC, Farage has updated his register to include a ‘category 4’ income for broadcast contracts. This means he is earning at least 10,000 euros a month, which would work out

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Back into battle

On 24 June last year, in the Georgian splendour of her official residence in Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square, Scotland’s First Minister offered her reaction to Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. Since Scottish voters endorsed Remain, it was now, Nicola Sturgeon said, ‘highly likely’ there would be another referendum on Scottish independence. Since then that promise — one viewed with dread by the two million Scots who voted to preserve the Union in 2014 — has been variously ‘on the table’, ‘more likely’ than ever and even ‘all but inevitable’. The clock is ticking. Later this month, Sturgeon will address her party’s annual conference. She is expected to outline the

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

The real reason Ukip are tearing each other apart

If the British establishment really wants to troll Ukip, then I suppose it ought to give Douglas Carswell a knighthood for blocking Nigel Farage’s knighthood. He says he didn’t, of course, and I don’t see how he could have done. Farage, though, clearly thinks he did, and his wrath about this is the most fun thing to have happened in British politics for ages. He’s furious. His little demons are furious. Too furious, really. ‘This must be about something else,’ I kept thinking. ‘Deep down, it must be. But what?’ According to the great smoked kipper himself, in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, Carswell has been a thorn in the

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

London Stock Exchange picked a bad year to join a pan-European project

The marriage of the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse may not be stone dead but that’s the way to bet, as Damon Runyan would have said. This so-called ‘merger of equals’ — with the Germans holding the larger stake and the top job but with the head office in London, at least to begin with — has foundered over a demand from EU competition authorities that the LSE should sell its majority stake in MTS, an Italian bond-trading platform. Having had its alternative proposal (to sell a French clearing operation) rejected, the LSE refused to comply, allegedly without first consulting its German partners. When this deal was announced a

Wednesday

Henry Newman

Berlusconi is back – and his eurozone idea isn’t completely barmy

A potentially significant moment in the travails of the EU was lost in the drama of John Major’s (re-)intervention into the Brexit debate on Monday. Over in Italy, another former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, also made an intervention. He called for Italy to introduce a separate currency alongside the euro which would allow it to ‘recover monetary sovereignty’. Berlusconi half floated a suggestion along these lines back in 2014. But now he says he is ‘completely convinced’ by it. He suggests that Italy should keep the euro for imports and exports, while using a different currency – a new domestic money supply – for state payments to ‘help the left behind’. Berlusconi’s

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Government suffers its first Article 50 bill defeat

In the past few minutes, the government has lost a vote in the House of Lords on a key aspect of Brexit: the status of EU nationals. Peers are at the Committee Stage of the bill that allows the government to trigger Article 50, and despite attempts by Home Secretary Amber Rudd to reassure them that this issue will be the priority once the negotiations for Britain to leave the European Union have begun, they backed Amendment 9b, which says the government should guarantee now that EU nationals living in the UK will have their rights protected. The House voted 358 to 256 for the cross-party amendment. Rudd was watching

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

What’s next for Jeremy Corbyn?

Got a daff pinned to your lapel? I haven’t. St David’s Day caused a predictable outbreak of Taffy-fondling in the House. Little yellow flowers winked gamely from the suits of several MPs, though many seem to be about as Welsh as Bombay Duck. What good is served by this annual flashing of custard-coloured flora? A 24-hour act of genuflection simply reminds members of a minority that the other 364 days are dedicated to those with enough power and wealth not to need a ‘Day’ with a capital letter. The passing of Gerald Kaufman drew heart-felt tributes from all sides. His death turns Kenneth Clarke into the Father of the House.