Politics

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

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour members’ stand-off with MPs shows things can only get more bitter

Jeremy Corbyn might have wanted to wipe the slate clean and start over with his MPs after the summer’s leadership contest. But the mood on the Labour conference fringe shows that this is going to be extremely difficult in practice, even if the Labour leader does everything that his MPs ask of him (which he won’t). Many members are furious with the MPs for orchestrating a coup against their leader and forcing a leadership contest; many MPs are utterly defiant about the importance of said coup, even though it failed, and aren’t prepared to fall meekly behind the leader, no matter how much members tell them to. Indeed, if the

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Corbyn’s team clash over Trident

Today Clive Lewis, the shadow Defence Secretary, used his conference speech to say that Labour has a clear policy in favour of renewing Trident and would sign up to the Nato target of spending 2pc on defence. While this is Labour policy, given that Lewis is viewed by many as a fully signed-up Corbynite there had been an expectation that he would take on an anti-Trident stance. Following his comments, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament issued a press release expressing their ‘huge disappointment at this U-turn’. Now it’s transpired that Lewis had meant to go further. The talk of conference is that Lewis had planned to say he would not

Steerpike Steerpike

Matt Hancock struggles to play it straight with radio speech

As Labour MPs and members alike turn on one another at their annual conference, the Conservatives get on with their work. So, spare a thought for Matt Hancock who was attempting to do just this at today’s Radio Festival when he encountered and unusual — if eye-catching — obstacle. While giving a speech at the event, the culture minister faced a screen malfunction. Rather than have his speech appear on the autocue, two words appeared before him: ‘cock gobbler’ https://twitter.com/patrickfoster2/status/780366802316656640 While Hancock managed to get through the speech, he then cracked and revealed to the audience the view before him. Mr S suspects that one staffer at the event will be laughing very

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour must hold the Tories to account on Brexit

John McDonnell is now speaking at the Labour conference, and will pledge to match the regional funding that communities will lose as a result of Brexit. This has been billed as ‘one of the Labour Party’s biggest policy statements since the Brexit vote’, which is another way of saying ‘one of the Labour Party’s only policy statements since the Brexit vote’. The turmoil in the party since that vote and its dismal performance in the polls (which, despite urban legend, was the case before the attempted coup against Corbyn) means that it’s largely pointless to evaluate this policy statement as though it might actually happen. Labour isn’t going to be

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Coffee House Shots: Labour conference’s uneasy peace

Labour’s conference is well underway but the mood so far is far from lively. Rather than rallying around their newly re-elected leader, for many who have gathered at the party’s annual conference the atmosphere is somewhat gloomy. So whilst Jeremy Corbyn promised to ‘wipe the slate clean’ following his re-election, can the Labour party learn to forgive and forget? Isabel Hardman says on this Coffee House Shots episode that so far an uneasy peace is prevailing. But only just…: ‘I was sort of expecting it to be this bitter bunfight where people were shouting at each other and that hasn’t happened so far. But we’ve only had one night where people have

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

John McDonnell’s fight against capitalism steps up a gear

With Labour’s bloody leadership contest behind them, John McDonnell wants to get back to business. This is a man who lists ‘fermenting the overthrow of capitalism’ as his pastime on Who’s Who. Now he is the Labour Party’s shadow chancellor. So with the renewed Corbynista mandate, what now? Having picked the brains of Ed Miliband and others, he says a Labour government would be defined by its willingness to step in – but only gently – to help out business. For McDonnell, that plan to intervene would take the form of a mammoth spending scheme backed by a national investment bank pumped with £100bn. He said his big idea was that: ‘The

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Labour’s anti-Semitism problem compared to ‘an over-whipped soufflé’

Although reports and actions in the past year have suggested that Corbyn’s Labour might just have a problem when it comes to Jews, some Labour members beg to differ. At Momentum’s World Transformed festival in Liverpool, a panel made up of Rhea Wolfson, Jackie Walker, Jonathan Rosenhead and Jeremy Newmark came together to ask: Does Labour have an anti-Semitism Problem? Attendees were gifted leaflets, on their way into the workshop, that called for the Jewish Labour Movement — which has ‘used the charge of widespread anti-Semitism in the Labour party to attack the new movement’ — to be expelled from Labour. This sentiment was a common theme throughout the session. Walker — who is vice-chair

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Labour conference, day two: The Spectator guide

It’s day two of the Labour Party conference. Here’s the Spectator’s guide to what to look out for today: Main conference: 11am: Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell’s speech Fringe events: 9am: ‘You can’t build peace with concrete: ending our relationships with Israel’s illegal settlements’ Speakers include: Jeremy Corbyn (possibly); Emily Thornberry 12.30pm: Where Next for Britain in Europe? Speakers include: Chuka Umunna; John Mann 12.30pm: Brexit: Unite against racism and hatred Speakers include: Diane Abbott 12.30pm: How do Labour win the general election? Speakers include: Angela Eagle 2.30pm: The case for Labour to back electoral reform Speakers include: John McDonnell 5.30pm: What does Brexit mean for students? Speakers include: Malia Bouattia,

Sunday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How long will the brittle peace at Labour’s conference survive?

Labour conference is now firmly underway in Liverpool, as is the ‘World Transformed’ festival organised by Corbynite grassroots organisation Momentum. Labour MPs and long-time activists are wandering about in a state of bewilderment at the change forged in their party over the past year, perhaps best embodied by the joyful appearance of former Militant bigwig Derek Hatton in the conference hall. Hatton was wearing a press pass, which will leave Corbynistas bewildered: aren’t they supposed to hate journalists? Everyone is trying to appear to be terribly nice to one another now that Corbyn has his even bigger mandate. Conversations between members of different factions rather resemble the afternoon tea scene

Steerpike Steerpike

WATCH: Tristram Hunt lays into Corbyn at Progress rally

Well that didn’t last long. After Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected as Labour leader on Saturday, Corbyn sceptic MPs appeared to put their differences to one side as they took to the airwaves to claim that Corbyn could be Prime Minister. At tonight’s Progress rally at conference, that facade was lifted. MPs including Liz Kendall and Ian Murray took to the stand to vow that they would not be pushed out of the party as they slammed the threat of deselection. However, it was Tristram Hunt’s speech that caught Mr S’s attention. The MP for Stoke-on-Trent, who wrote this week’s Spectator diary, clearly has no intention of taking Corbyn up on the offer of an

Steerpike Steerpike

Reason for cheer at Momentum’s rival conference

While the mood at Labour Conference is notably low this year, across town at Momentum’s ‘The World Transformed’ festival the crowd can be described as buzzing. Although Mr S’s taxi driver dropped him off while remarking that after the leadership result ‘the Monster Raving Loony party has as much chance of winning power as Labour’, the attendees at the Momentum event are in a jubilant mood now their leader has been returned. Well-to-do socialists are spending the day splashing out on ‘Tories are vermin’ mugs, reading the Morning Star and giving out leaflets explaining that the Jewish Labour Movement has ‘used the charge of anti-Semitism to attack the new movement’.

Steerpike Steerpike

Derek Hatton makes a return to Labour conference

Earlier this month, Derek Hatton told Mr S of his dismay after the former deputy leader of Liverpool Council’s application to attend this year’s Labour conference was denied. Although he had just wanted to attend in the capacity of a journalist, the former Militant member — who was expelled from Labour 29 years ago — was told this was not possible: ‘The Liverpool Echo asked me to write a conference diary but I was told two weeks ago the application had been declined. It wasn’t even for a political journal – it was for the Liverpool Echo. It’s not surprising though with the way the party are excluding people at

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn’s fresh start doesn’t sound convincing

If Jeremy Corbyn set out in his Marr interview to reassure his critics in the Labour Party that this is the beginning of a new era for the leadership and the wider party, he didn’t do a great job. The Labour leader refused to rule out mandatory reselection of his MPs, saying that most of them would be fine. He ‘wished them well’ and said: ‘Let’s have a democratic discussion and I think the vast majority of MPs will have no problem whatsoever.’ Perhaps to some, that sounded reassuring. But what it actually says to the handful of MPs facing battles in their seats, such as Peter Kyle and Stella

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why there will be no new shadow Cabinet for weeks

Normally, a leadership election is followed by the leader appointing a new top team. But that won’t be happening in this case. Instead, a new shadow Cabinet will have to wait for the Labour party to agree a new set of rules on how it should be selected. The problem is that many of those who resigned from the front bench over Corbyn’s leadership will only return if MPs are allowed to elect a section of the shadow Cabinet; the thinking—as Tristram Hunt writes in this week’s magazine — is that this would allow them ‘to return to work for Corbyn with honour’. But Corbyn isn’t keen on agreeing to

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Bust-up over influence of Scottish Labour

Now that Jeremy Corbyn has won, the fight moves to the jungle of Labour Party rules, regulations and procedures. Whoever controls these controls the party. Last Tuesday, for example, an eight-hour session of the party’s governing National Executive Committee (NEC) concluded that Scotland and Wales should each have their own member on the NEC. This seemed a bizarre, almost trivial outcome: so much argument and such a paltry outcome? The answer is simple: if the Corbynistas want to proceed with a purge of the Labour Party they’ll need a majority on the 33-member NEC. At present, power is balanced – but if there were Scottish and Welsh members then the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

David Cameron can’t blame Theresa May for his awful deal with the EU

Tim Shipman’s book about the EU referendum campaign, All Out War, is serialised today in the Sunday Times. The newspaper today leads on the remarkable disclosure that David Cameron blames Theresa May for the paucity of the deal he negotiated in those 30 sleepless hours with Brussels. Here’s the extract:- Before the speech, conscious that immigration was likely to be an explosive issue in the referendum campaign, Cameron had floated with Merkel the idea of an annual cap on the number of national insurance numbers handed to EU migrants or an emergency brake on numbers. But the German leader said she would not agree to changes to free movement for

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Labour’s conference, day one: The Spectator guide

Jeremy Corbyn promised to wipe the slate clean following Labour’s fractious leadership race. Now that he’s officially clinched victory, it’s time for the party to try and do just that at Labour’s annual conference, which kicks off at 11am today. Here, The Spectator has put together a guide of the main events to look out for. This is what’s on today: 11am: Labour’s conference starts The NEC’s chair Paddy Lillis speaks shortly afterwards Fringe events: 5.30pm: The Big Debate: Labour and the economy in Brexit Britain Speakers include: Chuka Umunna; Ed Miliband; Lisa Nandy; Rachel Reeves 6pm: Stop Trident Fringe Meeting Speakers include: Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the CND; John McDonnell; Diane Abbott 6pm:

Philip Collins

What Jeremy Corbyn can learn from Clement Attlee

History teaches no lessons but we insist on trying to learn from it. There is no political party more sentimental than the Labour party. The stone monument of Labour history is Clement Attlee’s 1945–51 administration, so any biography of the great man is, inevitably, an intervention into the present state of the party, even if it comes supported with all the best scholarly apparatus. The last major biography of Attlee was Kenneth Harris’s official work, more than 30 years ago, in 1982. There is a neat symmetry to the fact that Harris was writing during the last occasion that the Labour party decided to join hands and walk off a

Saturday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour women attack Theresa May as ‘no sister’. How very un-feminist.

The Labour Party is in a sour mood at present, that much we already know. Usually, most of the sourness expressed by MPs is directed at their own party comrades. But this afternoon, at the Labour Women’s Conference, speaker after speaker decided to turn fire on Theresa May. Angela Rayner congratulated her on being the second female Prime Minister of this country, but said ‘I cannot celebrate her arrival’. Kezia Dugdale attacked both May and Nicola Sturgeon for not being real feminists, saying: ‘Look at Theresa May – she has the audacity to wear a ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ T-shirt. She could wear it at the dispatch

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Now Corbyn has triumphed, Labour’s real civil war begins

Jeremy Corbyn has never been in a stronger position as Labour leader than he is today. A leadership contest that was meant to topple—or at the least, weaken him—has ended up solidifying his position. His Labour critics came for him, and he defeated them. He garnered 61.8 percent of the vote in this leadership contest, even more than he received last year. He won a majority among full members, something he just failed to do in the first round last time. He can, justifiably, say that the Labour membership have seen the leadership he is offering, and voted for more of it. Corbyn might have said, to his critics, ‘let’s