Politics

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

Saturday

1 Feb 2020

How it all went right: The great Brexit wound has almost healed

They are getting themselves terribly worked up about that new 50 pence coin commemorating our departure from the European Union. By ‘they’ I mean those people in the Brexit Derangement Syndrome intensive care ward, wired up to saline drips, attended to day and night, occasionally afforded a few thousand volts of ECT when things get really bad, but still foaming, still beside themselves with apoplexy. Alastair Campbell has announced that he will not accept the coin if given it in change. Lord Adonis, who was perhaps already in the antechamber of derangement even before June 2016, said: ‘I am never using or accepting this coin.’ The writer for middle-class kiddies,

James Forsyth

Brexit won’t end the Tory wars

Now that Britain is out of the European Union, it will be very hard to go back in. In the 2016 referendum campaign, one of the things that Vote Leave did most effectively was point out that because the EU was constantly evolving, no one could be confident that a vote for Remain was a vote for the status quo. And now Rejoin campaigners will be the ones who want to rip up current arrangements. There is no certainty about the terms on which the country could rejoin. Would the UK, for instance, be expected to commit to ‘ever closer union’ if in the future it were to return to

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Withdrawal Agreement signed, Huawei allowed in – and coronavirus spreads

Home Using a Parker fountain pen (a brand now made in Nantes), Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, signed the EU withdrawal agreement, which had been signed by Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, and Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, in Brussels and sent to London by train. The Queen had given royal assent to the Withdrawal Bill. All that remained was for the agreement to be rubber-stamped by the European Parliament to allow the United Kingdom to leave the European Union at 11 p.m. GMT on 31 January. A 50p coin was minted, inscribed: ‘Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations’; Lord Adonis

The Spectator

Brexit is the start, not the end

The moment of Britain’s departure from the EU was always likely to be an anticlimax, both for those who expect great things from Brexit and for those who had been braced for disaster. Departure day is not much of an event in itself, merely a moment at which new economic policies become possible. Thanks to the transition period and the Withdrawal Act, there is no cliff edge — at least not for now. Tough negotiations will begin again, but the Prime Minister has a chance to handle all this in a better, less divisive way than his predecessor. After leaving, Britain now takes on a new role: as the European

Stefanie Bolzen

The agony of Brexit – for us Germans

In the early hours of 13 December, I called my newspaper in Berlin and suggested we run a piece about what might happen on Brexit day, 31 January 2020. For a second the line went strangely quiet. ‘Hello? Last night’s result means Brexit,’ I said to my colleague. ‘It’s really happening.’ I imagined the news slowly penetrating her mind. It took a while to sink in and no wonder. Throughout the years of obstruction and stagnation in Britain, many of us in Germany allowed ourselves to think Brexit wouldn’t ever happen. More than any other European nation, we Germans have been in denial about Brexit. There’s a widespread idea here

James Forsyth

Trade talks between the UK and the EU are heading to an early bust up

Britain is no longer a member of the EU. Attention now shifts to what kind of trade agreement the EU and the UK are going to come to. I say in The Sun this morning, that the two sides are currently far apart—as we’ll see when the two sides set out their positions on Monday—and the negotiations are heading for a mighty smash. The UK thinks that the EU doesn’t realise how much has changed over the last few months. They fear that the EU has not clocked that this will be a very different negotiation because Boris Johnson has a majority in parliament and wants a free trade deal,

Charles Moore

The reason our civil service is soft on China

The creation of the National Security Council under David Cameron was supposed to join up parts of British government which had not previously had the right forum. We would now be able to survey all functions of security right across government. How odd it is that this coordination was not applied to the issue of Huawei years ago. Whatever may be said against great powers, they do have in their political bloodstream a constant sense of security threat, both external and internal, which helps them develop strategy. The United States and China both devote huge amounts of money and brainpower to the subject. Despite September 11 2001, and despite the

Stephen Daisley

Labour’s Richard Burgon problem

Richard Burgon is an idiot. Yes, I know you subscribe to The Spectator expecting more high-brow invective but I believe in being direct. Now, ordinarily I’d be in favour of leaving such a simple creature to his own devices, but this is the Labour Party we’re talking about, so Daisley’s First Law applies: The worst candidate in any Labour election is the one most likely to win. Elections for the deputy leader of the Labour party are generally to be filed under ‘private grief’, but Burgon is bent on spreading the misery around. He wants to be ‘campaigner in chief’ and pledges that, ‘within the first month of being deputy

Friday

31 Jan 2020

James Forsyth

The UK has left the EU

In practical terms, little has changed tonight. Businesses and citizens here will not feel any real difference in the coming weeks and months as they interact with the EU. But in another sense, everything has changed tonight. The UK is now out of the EU and the bar for rejoining will be very high. First of all, a party would have to win an election on a rejoin platform and then, probably, have a referendum. It is hard to imagine a party serious about winning office choosing to reopen this issue in the foreseeable future. Second, there would have to be a national consensus in favour of rejoining. The EU

Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson: This is the dawn of a new era

Below is a transcript of Boris Johnson’s address to the nation, as we prepare to leave the EU at 11pm. Tonight we are leaving the European Union. For many people this is an astonishing moment of hope, a moment they thought would never come. And there are many of course who feel a sense of anxiety and loss. And then of course there is a third group – perhaps the biggest – who had started to worry that the whole political wrangle would never come to an end. I understand all those feelings, and our job as the government – my job – is to bring this country together now

Brendan O’Neill

Ignore the Brexit day party poopers – it’s time to celebrate

Don’t gloat. Don’t be too triumphalist. Don’t wave your flags too boisterously. Don’t say or do anything that might offend sad, pained Remainers, who will be huddled in their homes, looking with bemusement and concern upon the terrible new world that will be born at 11pm tonight. All of these warnings are being issued to Leavers today as we gear up for our Brexit Day celebrations. Be humble, we’re told. Be magnanimous. Be quiet. And the party-pooping isn’t only coming from Europhiles who think the end of our membership of the EU is tantamount to the End of Days. Like London mayor Sadiq Khan, who has expressed concern that after

Katy Balls

Revealed: Claire Perry to depart role as President of UN Climate Change Conference

Claire Perry, who is now known as Claire Perry O’Neill, is to leave her role as President of the UN Climate Change Conference, Coffee House understands. Over the summer, the former Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth had been nominated to serve as the President of COP 26 – for when the UK takes over the stewardship of the global effort to tackle climate change in a conference in Glasgow this November. However, a Whitehall source says that this will no longer be the case: ‘Everything to do with COP is being integrated with the SoS BEIS from this weekend. Clare Perry will no longer be involved. We

Mary Dejevsky

Brexit day is a gloriously muted occasion

Whatever your feelings about Brexit, this day, 31 January, 2020, will be seen as a point in history. It is the day that the UK left the European Union after nearly half a century and set out, once again, on its own. While we may have been through more than three years of parliamentary wrangling, two elections and something akin to a constitutional crisis to get here, the actual day itself is being marked with characteristic understatement – just a little bit. Bongs from Big Ben were ruled out with two weeks to go, a flag display promised as consolation. No one even dreamt of demanding that Westminster Abbey peal

Steerpike

Boris lets slip HS2’s future

No. 10’s relationship with the media has been frosty at times, with ministers reportedly banned from appearing on shows like the Today programme. Boris Johnson has now taken that antipathy a step further. The PM has been caught on Sky News talking to a school children about one of the biggest long-running news stories of the moment. During the discussion, Mr Johnson was asked by ten-year-old Braydon Brent about HS2. Much has been made in recent weeks of the government’s potential plans to scrap the scheme. However, instead of revealing the fate of the troubled project to an established journalist, Boris decided that young Braydon should be the first to

Nigel Harris

Barmy government procurement is a key driver of HS2 costs

The fate of HS2 will soon be decided and news of the much-hyped Oakervee Review has started to leak. It seems to recommend that the project should go ahead in full (onwards to Manchester and Leeds from Birmingham) but concedes that potential costs are too high. HS2 now cannot be delivered within its £56bn budget, and £88bn is the more pragmatic figure. I’m the editor of RAIL magazine and we’ve been covering it for over ten years and I’ve noticed how much people aren’t being told. So here’s my attempt to distil the costs story into a few paragraphs. In the beginning, HS2 costs were estimated at about £34bn. To

William Cook

Why Europhiles should welcome Brexit day

As Big Ben fails to bong tonight, and Brexiteers toast a famous victory, will those who voted for Remain be ranting or sulking, or simply crying into their beer? If so, they should perhaps stop feeling so sorry for themselves. Of course, if you’re a Europhile, today is hardly a day of celebration – but neither is it a day for misery. Because if you believe in the EU, as I do, you should welcome Brexit Day. Brexit isn’t just a fresh start for Britain – it’s also a fresh start for the EU. For nearly 30 years, ever since Maastricht, Britain has been a constant drag on the development

Cindy Yu

The Edition podcast: has the great Brexit divide mended?

31 min listen

First, as the news agenda is dominated by things like Huawei, HS2, and public spending, could politics be – whisper it – returning to normal? In his cover piece this week, Rod Liddle writes how, for the most part, the election result has put a lid on the civil war between Remainers and Brexiteers. One such Remainer who has reconciled herself with the result is Stefanie Bolzen, the UK Correspondent for Die Welt. She writes in the issue this week about just why Germans are so heartbroken about Brexit. Stefanie and Rod chat Brexit emotions on the podcast. Next, is there anything to be gleaned from the Chinese response to

Stephen Daisley

Boris Johnson must start taking Scexit seriously

Polls come and go and the YouGov survey showing support for Scottish independence at 51 per cent should be read with that in mind. The Nationalists have been ahead before and have fallen behind again. What Downing Street cannot take in its stride is this: five years since the Scottish referendum, and with the SNP government in Edinburgh plagued by crises in health and education, support for secession has not fallen away. The separatists still enjoy a solid base of support, around 45 per cent, which delivered them 47 of Scotland’s 59 seats in the general election. They lost the 2014 referendum 55 per cent to 45 per cent and

The Spectator

‘Bye Bye Brits’: European papers herald Brexit day

At 11pm tonight, Britain will finally leave the European Union, after 47 years inside the bloc. And, as expected, many European newspapers chose to mark Brexit day on their front pages. Le Figaro: ‘L’adieu a l’Europe Liberation: It’s time La Croix: See you! Le Monde: Europe enters the unknown Die Welt: The British leave. The Germans suffer El Pais (online): A new era without the UK Berlingske: Bye-bye, Brits Algemeen Dagblad: Farewell Dagens Nyheter De Tijd Gazeta Wyborcza: Brexit – a lesson for Poland Rzeczpospolita: Abandoned Europe The Irish Times: Britain leaves the European Union not with a bang, but a whimper

James Kirkup

You can thank Remainers for the hardness of this Brexit

The first chapter of Britain’s Brexit story ends tonight. For some, that’s something to celebrate. For others it means sadness. For most of us, I suspect, emotions are mixed: a bit of relief at the sense of clarity that underpins politics; a bit of optimism that we might all learn from the psychodrama/culture war of 2016-2019; a bit of foreboding about the Brexit dramas still to come. I voted Remain. I believed that despite its flaws (and I know them well: I covered more than 50 EU summits as a reporter, and projects including birth of the euro, the stability and growth pact and the European Constitution) Britain’s long-term interests