Politics

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

Friday

Madeleine Kearns

Why No. 10 should be polling ‘culture war’ issues

Notwithstanding this week’s excitement, millions of Brits are fed up discussing Brexit, Brexit and nothing but Brexit. They want to know when we’re going to address some other important issues. Issues like identity politics. And transgenderism. So-called ‘culture war’ issues. If reports are to be believed, No. 10 have been trying to find out what yer-man-on-the-street thinks about these issues ahead of an impending general election. (No. 10 denies this, of course.) From Rachel Sylvester in the Times: ‘According to one insider, Number 10 has been polling “culture war” issues, such as transgender rights, to see whether they can be weaponised against Labour in northern working-class constituencies but this would

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Could Boris Johnson cut Northern Ireland loose?

Boris Johnson is trapped. He has thrown away his working Commons majority by expelling 21 reality-based Conservatives. He gambled on his political enemies doing the thing he wanted them to, vote for an early general election, then appeared surprised when they declined to do so. If he can’t get a Commons vote for that election next week, it seems quite likely he will face a legal requirement to request an Article 50 extension, with no prospect of an election and a new majority before 31 October that could free him from that obligation. How does he get out of the hole he has dug himself? A lot of chatter is

Robert Peston Robert Peston

We’re heading for a November election

Opposition parties will again vote against a general election on Monday. The debate between leaders of Labour, SNP, Liberal Democrats, Plaid and Greens is whether to vote for an election a day or two after Queen’s Speech on October 14 or day or three after EU summit on October 17-18. Either way, it is all about making sure Boris Johnson either goes to Brussels to beg for a Brexit delay or resigns to allow a temporary government of national unity and means the general election would be in (mid to late) November. How does Johnson escape this trap?

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Remainers may regret not backing an October general election

So there goes the reputation of Boris Johnson’s henchmen as cunning operators. It has been a bad week for Dominic Cummings and others in the Downing Street bunker who were widely assumed to have gamed every possibility and to have some genius strategy for delivering Brexit by 31 October, in spite of the assembled forces of Remain who are determined to stop them. Clearly, not everything has gone to plan. The Remainers have enjoyed their Battle of Marston Moor. It is Parliamentarians 1, Cavaliers 0. On Monday, a bill seeking to prevent a no-deal Brexit on 31 October will become law – and Boris has been denied his fallback: a

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Emily Thornberry’s Brexit confusion

As the Labour party currently decides whether it wants to fight a general election, many observers are still trying to work out (three years after the referendum) what the party’s actual Brexit policy is. Does Labour want to Remain? Does it want to fight a second referendum? And if there is a second referendum, what will the party campaign for? Happily, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry was on Question Time last night to clear up any misunderstandings. Presenter Fiona Bruce began proceedings by making a valiant attempt to outline what she understood was Labour’s current, official Brexit policy, before asking: ‘You would go back to Europe, try and get a

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Will Boris Johnson be impeached?

A conspicuously rattled and tired Boris Johnson – flanked surreally by the police in Wakefield – said yesterday he would ‘rather be dead in a ditch’ than obey the expected new law that would force him to ask the EU for a Brexit delay. Which carries only two implications. Johnson could quit as Prime Minister before the EU summit on October 17 and bequeath to some other temporary prime minister the gift of suing the EU for a Brexit delay. That could happen, but honestly I don’t believe Johnson will ever voluntarily quit Downing Street. He’s waited for this moment too long. Apart from anything else, any new PM –

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What the opposition pact means for Boris Johnson’s path to an early election

Although Downing Street heralded Thursday the ‘first day of the election campaign’, Boris Johnson is yet to be able to call an election. Today Labour and other UK opposition parties have agreed not to back the Prime Minister’s call for general election before the October EU summit. Explaining the decision, the SNP’s Ian Blackford said they wanted to make sure the UK did not crash out in a no-deal Brexit. Ahead of the meeting, Corbyn had been under pressure from figures including Keir Starmer to hold off on an early election until after an extension has been requested on 19 October. Johnson had hoped to have an election October 15

Steerpike Steerpike

Rory Stewart: the picture perfect politician

On Tuesday, the former Conservative MP Rory Stewart won GQ’s Politician of the Year award. It was probably the best part of the week for Stewart, who has had the Conservative whip removed and been roundly mocked after posting a series of photographs on Twitter, in which his typical grinning selfie smile disappeared when he was next to one particular individual: Thank you for coming @lozzaalaurenn and so many others to meet me at Hartlepool pic.twitter.com/j5sXARm8of — Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) August 29, 2019 It was then revealed that Rory shares the modern affliction of caring deeply about his online presence, clearly liking one image on his website so much that he named

Thursday

Toby Young Toby Young

The political pact that could save Brexit

If there is to be an election before we leave the European Union, some kind of non-aggression pact between the Tories and the Brexit party is essential. Without it, the risk is all too obvious: that pro-Brexit voters will be divided, allowing pro-Remain candidates to win, even in some constituencies where a clear majority are in favour of leaving. A case in point is Boris Johnson’s constituency. Uxbridge and South Ruislip is in the London borough of Hillingdon, where 56.37 per cent of votes cast in the 2016 referendum were for Leave. But his majority in 2017 was only 5,034, and if the Brexit party fields a candidate against him

The Spectator

The next election will be a referendum – on Corbynism

The next general election will have been precipitated by, and will inevitably be fought over, Brexit. Yet it will also be the fiercest battle of ideas for more than a generation. Britain must choose between economic liberalism and a command economy, between a smallish state and a domineering one. This would be a crucial choice at any time, but the implications of Brexit make it more so. Jeremy Corbyn supported leaving the EU in 1975 for the same reason he can’t quite denounce Brexit now: a parliament that takes back control can be far more radical. And his Labour party has plenty of radicalism in mind. Even though Labour occupies

Peter Jones

How to deal with Brexit anger, according to the ancients

Sir Philip Pullman, tweeting that thoughts of hanging the PM came to mind after the decision to prorogue parliament, later drew back: ‘I don’t apologise for the anger I feel; only for its intemperate expression.’ The ancients were well aware that rage usually removed a man’s judgment and made him look an idiot. In his lengthy treatise on anger, defined as ‘a desire to avenge a wrong’, the Roman stoic philosopher Seneca argued against it on three grounds: it was unnecessary, learned behaviour; it did not lead to desirable conduct; and it made a man prone to violence. Take, for example, one’s reaction to wrongdoing. It needed to be dealt

Charles Moore Charles Moore

There’s nothing wrong with Jacob Rees-Mogg lying down in the Commons

If you are a journalist covering politics this year, every moment is a bad moment to take a holiday. I took a short one last week in search of grouse and arrived at Hunthill, the proud Scottish fastness of our host Henry Keswick, to find that Boris Johnson had promised to prorogue parliament. Since the party included a cabinet minister, another Member of Parliament etc, it all felt a bit like a John Buchan novel. As I watched the beaters approach us across the moor, I imagined it as the sort of scene Buchan describes so well in which the appearance of seemingly innocent sport on the hill is in

The Spectator

How often has a general election been held on a Monday?

A Monday poll? The government was considering a general election on 14 October — a Monday. This raised eyebrows because general elections have been held on Thursdays since 1935. There are various theories about why — that it gives an incoming PM a weekend to form a new government, that it was market day in many towns, that fewer voters would be drunk than at the weekend, that by Thursday churchgoers would have forgotten the previous Sunday’s sermon at parish communion. But there is no single reason — each PM has been free to decide. — Until 1918, general elections were held over a period of four weeks. Elections were then

David Gunnlaugsson

Parliament wants to destroy the UK’s negotiating position

For onlookers it is astonishing to see the British establishment, commentators and a majority of MPs try to scuttle the negotiating position of their own country in its most important negotiations in living memory. Admittedly Iceland, my small country, has had its own share of fifth column interventions in times of crises. Still, it is heart-breaking for a Britophile to watch a country that has been a world leader in diplomatic strategy for centuries – a country that has persevered through existential challenges and achieved incredible things – turn against its fundamental interests. How can anyone imagine, or try to convince others, that negotiating, while stating that not accepting a

William Shawcross

Brexit has its risks. But staying in the EU is now unthinkable

This is one of the most crucial weeks in modern British history. We have a prime minister and cabinet who understand the stakes in terms of our future independence. But the forces fighting them — some of them sincere, many of them cynical — are fearsome. There are risks in proceeding with Brexit. But there are far greater risks in abandoning it. This endless crisis has led to widespread criticism of British politicians of all hues, some of it justified. I find it deeply distasteful to see very senior Conservatives plotting with the opposition to bring down the Prime Minister. But far less criticism has been levelled at the EU

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris Johnson could be about to lose everything – or redefine British politics

Boris Johnson has already decided on his election message: vote for me and get Brexit, vote for anyone else and get Jeremy Corbyn. He will ask voters: who can you imagine negotiating best with Brussels? Me, or Corbyn? Clear as the message may be, the Prime Minister is risking everything in this contest. He could lose it all: Brexit, his premiership, the party, the works. He could go down in history as the shortest-lived occupant of No. 10. Or he could win, take this country out of the EU, then realign and reshape British politics. As one of those intimately involved in the decision to go for an election puts

Steerpike Steerpike

Jo Johnson takes inspiration from the Milibands

Boris Johnson was dealt a bitter blow this morning. Not only did the Prime Minister suffer his first ministerial resignation, a mere 43 days in to his premiership, but it was his own brother Jo who wielded the dagger. The former universities minister, who signed up to Boris’s government in July, dramatically announced his resignation on Twitter, saying that: ‘In recent weeks I’ve been torn between family loyalty and the national interest – it’s an unresolvable tension and time for others to take on my roles as MP and Minister. #overandout’ But was the writing always on the wall? It certainly seems that Boris was tempting fate when he was

Alex Massie Alex Massie

What happened to the Conservative Party?

So now we know. There is no point in denying it and no advantage in wishing away plainly observable reality. The Conservative and Unionist party that exists today is not the Conservative and Unionist party of old. In spirit, and increasingly in personnel, it is now closer to Nigel Farage and the Brexit party than the traditions of the strain of One Nation Toryism Boris Johnson professes to embody. That is the obvious lesson to be drawn from the expulsion of Ken Clarke, Philip Hammond, David Gauke, Rory Stewart, Greg Clark, Nicholas Soames and the rest of the 21 Tory ‘rebels’ who voted against this already-rickety government this week. A

John Connolly John Connolly

Luciana Berger joins the Lib Dems

The former Labour MP Luciana Berger has announced today that she is no longer an independent in parliament and has joined the Liberal Democrats. Berger becomes the party’s sixteenth MP in parliament, and is the second former Labour defector to join the Lib Dems, after Chuka Umunna made the jump this summer. In an interview with the Evening Standard revealing her decision to join the party, the Wavertree MP said that she was committed to stopping a ‘catastrophic’ no-deal Brexit and later said she had joined ‘the strongest party to stop Brexit, fight for equality and a fairer country.’ Berger resigned from Labour in February this year in protest at