Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
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Kay Burley is a Sky News founding member, host of The Kay Burley Show, and holds the record for hosting more hours of live television than any other news presenter. Kay tells Katy about how she ‘knocked the rough edges’ off her accent, her love for Jane Fonda, and why the BBC couldn’t afford her these days. Presented by Katy Balls.
The problem with Brexit is that parliament is not designed to do what the people have commanded it to. MPs feel their job is to construct their own manifesto and deliver on that, not on something foisted upon them by an ignorant public in the name of ‘popular sovereignty’. Unlike MPs, however, Cicero understood the importance of that sovereignty, and discussed it in detail in his On the Republic (De re publica). At the heart of the res publica, he argued, was the notion of the public interest, which he defined as ‘people coming together to form a society by agreeing about what justice is, and mutually participating in its
For many people, next Friday was supposed to be a celebration. Boris Johnson spoke about an ‘independence day’ marking the beginning of a new era of national self-confidence. But as we approach 29 March, not even ardent Brexiteers can claim that there is anything to celebrate. Theresa May has been reduced to asking, or rather begging, the EU for an extension to Article 50 — something that the EU has said it will grant only if Britain can provide a good reason for needing the extra time. So far, the Prime Minister has not provided one, apart from the prolonging of every-one’s agony. When parliament voted to enact Article 50
Angela Merkel says disdainfully, ‘I admit I was not on top of the British parliament’s 17th-century procedural rules.’ Her implication is that they are absurdly out of date. Yet the old rule invoked by Mr Speaker Bercow is surely one that can hold up its head in the 21st century. It is that the executive should not keep putting the same question to parliament until it gets its way. Therefore Mrs May cannot just keep reheating her terrible withdrawal deal. If there were no such rule, there would be no end to the bullying. Isn’t there something quite impressive about the fact that we have an elected assembly which had
Much has recently been written about the incumbent Commons Speaker, from (vigorously denied) allegations of bullying to (less vigorously denied) suggestions of Brexit-foxing chicanery. And to call John Bercow a ‘Marmite politician’ is to state the obvious. A little less obvious is his idiosyncratic style of address — the bizarre collision of a Dickensian clerk with aspirations to eloquence, a stern headmaster out of P. G. Wodehouse, and a contestant on Just a Minute desperate not to hesitate, deviate or repeat. Some of the Speaker’s vocal fireworks are plain to hear. His musical calls of ‘Jer-emy Cor-byn’ have been compiled into an ascending harmonic scale, and his strangled cries of ‘Oaaaaaarderrrrrrrrr’ have achieved social-media
With Theresa May’s premiership on the ropes, there’s an expectation of a Tory leadership contest later this year. It follows that Conservative heavyweights are currently working their hardest to lay the groundwork for a future campaign. In that vein, the latest register of interests shows that rivals Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Amber Rudd and Michael Gove are among the Tories to get recent donations which could prove helpful in the months to come. However, there is one donation that Mr S suspects could come back to haunt its recipient. Boris Johnson has been given a donation of £16,000 by Johan Christofferson. Christofferson is a hedge fund manager with a history
Oh dear, it seems as if the pressure placed on John Bercow after he blocked a third meaningful vote on May’s Brexit deal, may have gotten to the Speaker’s head as of late. In the Chamber today, Bercow appeared visibly angry when he apparently spied an MP behaving in a partisan way, and launched into this tirade against them: ‘Let’s grow up. Do grow up. For goodness sake, this is not a matter of party political hackery. Let’s have some seriousness of purpose and mutual respect… For goodness sake, let’s raise the level.’ This in turn prompted Bercow’s arch-rival, the leader of the house Andrea Leadsom, to respond that she
I’ve been passed copies of media briefing notes prepared for the junior Brexit minister Kwasi Kwarteng, who this morning did a round of TV and radio interviews. My source is a political one, not another hack or media person, which I point out to prevent any suspicion that a media company is behaving badly by passing me the document. What is striking – and important – is that Kwarteng has been instructed, presumably by Downing Street, to avoid saying that MPs face a choice between backing the PM’s deal and a no-deal Brexit, even though that is how the PM and the EU’s president Donald Tusk seemed to be framing
Theresa May has united Westminster. Right across the political spectrum, politicians and journalists agree that her televised statement from No. 10 last night was an epic misjudgement, that seeking to pin public blame on MPs for the failure to agree a Brexit outcome has made it even less likely that they will now reach such an agreement. The PM’s awful statement, it is said, has driven away the very MPs she needs to pass her Withdrawal Agreement next week. Consensus like that deserves scrutiny, because it’s often a cloak under which people can hide inconvenient facts. Consider the assertion that May has alienated MPs who will not now vote for
Theresa May heads to Brussels today to plead for an Article 50 extension. The expectation is that EU leaders will only grant one on the condition her deal passes next week on a third vote. This is looking increasingly hard to do following May’s No. 10 statement last night. In an address to the nation, the Prime Minister attempted to lay the blame on MPs – rather than herself – for the fact that it is now very unlikely the UK will leave the EU at the end of March. May said it was a matter of deep ‘personal regret’ to her and went on to add: ‘All MPs have
Has there been a Brexit disaster? It depends on your point of view. When John Bercow ruled that the Prime Minister could not bring the same deal back for a third vote, there were a great number of MPs who seemed delighted. But they were at opposite ends of the Brexit debate. Needless to say, they can’t all be right. Dominic Grieve, who longs for a second referendum, welcomed the decision — thinking that the panic, and the government’s inability to answer the question, would mean the decision being thrown back to the public. Bill Cash, one of the longest-standing Eurosceptics, also seemed pleased — appearing to calculate that Britain
The government has lost the ability to run the country. It is no longer in charge of its own destiny, let alone that of the nation. What makes this so humiliating is that power has been ceded not to parliament, but to the European Union. The immediate future of our country will be decided in Brussels and the capitals of the EU, not in Westminster. It will be the EU that decides whether or not to offer the UK an extension to the Article 50 process, and how long it will be. Once the extension has been agreed, then parliament — which has already voted against leaving without a deal
You can buy the latest edition of Thomas Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice for just over three hundred quid, but I wouldn’t advise it. Short on jokes, in my opinion. A product of its time, fastidious early Victoriana striving desperately for the coming paradigm: scientism. Old Erskine was possibly the bastard offspring of one of our better lord chancellors, the libidinous Whig Thomas Erskine, who was born in Edinburgh and served under Grenville and Fox in the supposed ‘Government of All the Talents’ — as opposed to the one we have now, which is the ‘Government Of No Fucking Clue Whatsoever’. Thomas Erskine was a proponent of parliamentary reform and acted
In the past I’ve explained why the EU would be happy if the Commons accepted May’s deal. In essence, the Withdrawal Agreement would allow the EU to impose its integration project on the UK, and the UK wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. In contrast, EU federalists have made it pretty clear they fear a Brexit delay. This is consistent with the tough rhetoric coming out of Brussels at the moment demanding a ‘price’ for any long delay. The PM has avoided that by proposing a short delay. There are noises coming out of Brussels that suggest next week there will be an EU Council decision on delaying
In the Middle East, Pakistan, India, North Korea and parts of China – hatred and persecution of Christians is well documented. But who would have thought preaching the gospel would become a risky business on the streets of Britain? Last month saw the wheelchair bound preacher Claudio Boggi being threatened and spat at by a man called Ali Al-Hindawi, who shouted ‘Allah is God’. Al-Hindawi went on to attack another Christian volunteer in Westminster, biting his fingers and assaulting him with a metal bar – he’s thankfully now in jail. Next came the news that an innocent street preacher, Oluwole Ilesanmi, had been arrested for ‘breach of the peace’ outside Southgate
This evening, Jeremy Corbyn walked out of a meeting between opposition party leaders and the Prime Minister about Brexit. The reason for his angry protest had nothing to do with what was being discussed, but his distaste for one of the attendees. Former Labour MP Chuka Umunna was there to represent the Independent Group, and this, according to those present, was too much for the Labour leader to stomach. Labour has since said the the terms of the meeting had changed and that this wasn’t what Corbyn had agreed to when he said he would meet the Prime Minister in her office. But this is an impressive own goal, even
Nearly three years have passed since the public voted to leave the European Union. It was the biggest democratic exercise in our country’s history. I came to office on a promise to deliver on that verdict. In March 2017, I triggered the Article 50 process for the UK to exit the EU – and Parliament supported it overwhelmingly. Two years on, MPs have been unable to agree on a way to implement the UK’s withdrawal. As a result, we will now not leave on time with a deal on 29 March. This delay is a matter of great personal regret for me. And of this I am absolutely sure: you
Theresa May’s statement tonight wasn’t particularly dramatic. She had no new policies to announce or arguments to make. Rather, she once again attempted to frame the choice before MPs as her deal, no deal or no Brexit. She tried to position herself as the defender of the referendum result and attacked MPs for failing to take a decision. As a political journalist my reaction to the statement was, is that it? But the question is whether the attack on MPs for the endless motions and amendments and for not talking about anything else will resonate with the public, and lead to them putting pressure on their MPs to back the
Will MPs next week really face a simple choice, between May’s deal and a no-deal Brexit, or is that a bluff? Such a binary choice was what a dozen cabinet ministers – those who hate the idea that the Brexit delay could be nine months or more – were sure they heard from the PM when they met her at lunchtime today (they included the Brexiter veterans, such as Penny Mordaunt, Liam Fox and Andrea Leadsom, as well as the recent converts, Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt and Matt Hancock). And it is what the EU president Donald Tusk seemed to be saying in his public statement today. For what it’s
Donald Tusk has just declared that the UK can have a short extension if MPs vote for the Brexit deal next week. The Tusk statement implies that if MPs don’t vote for the withdrawal agreement, then the UK can’t have an extension—and so will leave without a deal. I suspect that we’ll see Number 10 trying to use this line to cajole Labour MPs into voting with the government next week. But I don’t think what Tusk was saying was quite that simple. His message was that if the UK wants a short extension then the meaningful vote needs to pass next week, as per the timetable set out in