Politics Archives

Wednesday

20 Mar 2019

The problem with Speaker John Bercow

The trouble with Mr Speaker, even when he makes the right decision, is his motives. Fame is the spur and so is his love of hurting the Conservative party which nurtured him. However natural these feelings, they are completely wrong for the Speakership. The occupant of the chair is supposed to be a pillar of the constitution, not its talking gargoyle. A sad feature of the Brexit story has been how so many people with important official roles have not seemed to understand or, in some cases, even to care, what those roles entail. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England are supposed to

Theresa May

Full text: May’s letter to Donald Tusk requesting a Brexit extension

Dear Donald, The UK Government’s policy remains to leave the European Union in an orderly manner on the basis of the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration agreed in November, complemented by the Joint Instrument and supplement to the Political Declaration President Juncker and I agreed on 11 March. You will be aware that before the House of Commons rejected the deal for a second time on 12 March, I warned in a speech in Grimsby that the consequences of failing to endorse the deal were unpredictable and potentially deeply unpalatable. The House of Commons did not vote in favour of the deal. The following day it voted against leaving the

Robert Peston

Corbyn’s strategy for a softer Brexit

Probably the most important event at yesterday’s shadow cabinet was a presentation by Labour’s campaigns director Niall Sookoo of polling that purported to show that ‘our support has fallen because we back a People’s Vote’ – according to a frontbencher. The party’s chairman Ian Lavery, who opposes Labour backing a Brexit referendum, was thrilled and crowed ‘I told you so’, according to my source. The shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry, who backs a People’s Vote, ‘ripped it to shreds’. Another source said: ‘There was a presentation to the shadow cabinet updating on the local election and the impact of support for a second referendum on our levels of support, including

Katy Balls

May tries to avoid Tory meltdown by only requesting short Brexit delay

After much speculation, a furious Cabinet and the threat of another backbench rebellion, No. 10 has finally confirmed what type of Article 50 extension Theresa May will seek at Thursday’s EU council summit. Downing Street has said May will not ask for a long delay. Instead, the Prime Minister will seek a brief extension of a couple of months. The source added that May shares the public’s ‘frustration’ at the failure by Parliament to ‘take a decision’. May’s decision comes after her position looked increasingly under threat were she to seek a long extension – potentially of up to two years. At Cabinet on Tuesday, ministers made clear their displeasure

Robert Peston

The huge Tory revolt to stop a long Brexit delay

There is a huge Tory revolt under way to stop Theresa May asking the EU for a Brexit delay of nine months or more. She has been requested to address the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs at 5pm on Wednesday where she will be told in no uncertain terms that the delay must not be longer than the end of June. Meanwhile, many MPs have told me that Brexiter members of Cabinet, led by Andrea Leadsom and Penny Mordaunt, have also sought a meeting with the PM on Wednesday morning to express the same concern. Neither minister has responded to my enquiry. Also, several MPs have said there is a

Mary Kenny

Would the real St Patrick have appreciated the contemporary marketisation of his Saint’s day?

St Patrick’s Day, on 17 March, is now regarded as a prime opportunity for Irish politicians to travel abroad on a mission for ‘brand Ireland’. They fly off overseas, armed with the symbol of the shamrock, alerting their hosts to the shiny new liberal Ireland which is such a fabulous investment opportunity — and don’t forget the low corporation tax! Few national saints have the global reach of Patrick: it has been calculated that church bells ring out in 800 worldwide locations to celebrate the feast day of this Roman Briton who brought Christianity to Ireland in the early 5th century. Jewish bakeries in New York sell green bagels and

Tuesday

19 Mar 2019

James Kanagasooriam

Why Remainers were shocked by the referendum result, but Leavers less so

When I quit investment banking in search of daylight in 2014 I thought my life was going to be little easier crunching numbers for political campaigns. It wasn’t to be. Over the last few years, I’ve worked on the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, the 2015 general election, the Scottish Holyrood election in 2016, the EU referendum and the 2017 snap election. What I’ve never been able to wrap my head around through all these campaigns is why we’ve seen so many political upsets. Just why has the political consensus been wrong so often these past five years? When I worked on the Remain campaign, the upending of the consensus

Robert Peston

Cabinet ministers clash over length of Brexit extension

The PM presented choices to the Cabinet for the letter she is expected to write to the EU’s President Donald Tusk requesting a Brexit delay – without nailing down precisely what she will do. That said, her ministers think she will request a delay until 30 June, predicated on her somehow getting her deal ratified by MPs – with an option of an extension to the end of 2020 in the event she ever concedes her own Brexit plan is definitely an ex-parrot (or dead, for the few of you too young to remember Monty Python). May’s hope is that if this delay schedule is agreed as a legally binding

Steerpike

Angela Merkel left baffled by parliamentary procedure

It’s not just the government who have been caught by surprise at Bercow’s vote announcement yesterday, it raised eyebrows in Germany too. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted this morning ‘I must confess I was not familiar with the rules of order of the British parliament from the 17th century’. Of course, Mr S, a well known expert on Jacobean constitutional conventions, saw it coming a mile off. But Mr S can’t help wondering how different the Withdrawal Agreement could have been had EU leaders known that without, in the Speaker’s words, ‘substantial’ changes, the deal wouldn’t be voted on at all. Sadly this might be the last straw for

James Forsyth

Once an extension is agreed, domestic law won’t take us out of the EU

As we wait for the text of Theresa May’s letter requesting an Article 50 extension, it is worth remembering that once the UK government and the EU have agreed an extension then the UK will continue to be an EU member under international law—and international law trumps domestic law. A Department for Exiting the European Union briefing note for ministers points out that the Vienna Convention declares: ”’A party may not invoke the provision of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.” As a matter of EU law, it follows that in these circumstances we would remain a member state after 29 March, and the

James Forsyth

Why the DUP are worried about Tory succession | 19 March 2019

It is the morning after the Bercow before, and it seems pretty much certain that there won’t be a meaningful vote 3 until after the European Council. Whatever is decided there on an extension, should be enough for the government to say that the package is different enough to justify bringing it back for another vote. But there is no point in the government bringing it back for another vote unless it has a chance of winning that vote, and it won’t have that without the DUP. I understand that these negotiations are going relatively well. But one of those familiar with DUP thinking tells me that one concern they

Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn reveals all at the British Kebab Awards

As Westminster descended into chaos last night, with the Speaker’s announcement that he would block Theresa May’s meaningful vote, and with only eleven days until Brexit, where else would politicos be except the British Kebab Awards – which celebrate all that is good about the humble kebab shop. There was a serious moment at the event, with a minute’s silence held for the victims of the Christchurch attack. And some important polling information was divulged, as Kebab Award founder İbrahim Doğuş announced that your average kebab eater is a Remainer and votes Labour. Alongside journalists, kebab shop owners and employees, Mr Steerpike spotted a fair few politicians mingling in the crowd,

Matthew Lynn

Why Greek, Italian and Cypriot banks can go to the wall, but German ones can’t

It would only encourage irresponsible lending. Deficits would run out of control. The rules of the single currency would be undermined, and voters would lose faith in the euro. Over the last few years, the Germans, the European Central Bank, and the EU itself, have been adamant that banks shouldn’t be bailed out inside the eurozone. Along the way, Greek, Cypriot, Italian and Irish banks have all been allowed to go to the wall or squeezed to extinction. But hold on. There seems to be an exception to that austere financial regime. Big German banks. With the once mighty Deutsche Bank in serious trouble, it turns out there is nothing

Robert Peston

Theresa May doesn’t have a Plan B

When Theresa May asks the EU’s 27 government heads for a Brexit delay on Thursday, they will reply ‘what’s it for, Mme Prime Minister?’ And the problem she’s got — we’ve got — is she doesn’t know, as the junior Brexit minister Kwasi Kwarteng made crystal clear when questioned in the Commons yesterday. All she has is her deal, rejected comprehensively by MPs twice and ruled as ultra vires for a third vote by the Speaker yesterday. There is no Plan B, there never has been. So those same EU leaders are almost certain, according to well-placed sources, to postpone the decision on whether to grant a Brexit delay and

Monday

18 Mar 2019

Steerpike

Watch: John Bercow lays into Andrea Leadsom

Today, the Speaker John Bercow dealt a harsh blow to the government’s Brexit strategy after announcing that he would block a third vote on Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, unless it changed in a substantial way. Not content though with just one attack on the government, the Speaker also found time to launch a dig at his favourite rival in the House of Commons: Andrea Leadsom. After the Commons leader entered the Chamber to sit on the front bench, and was checking her phone — presumably waiting on updates from Number 10 — Bercow appeared to be peeved that he didn’t have her full attention, and launched a broadside at her

Katy Balls

Has Bercow just destroyed May’s last chance to pass her deal?

No. 10’s strategy to win over the DUP and the Brexiteers to Theresa May’s deal in time for a third vote has hit a wall. It’s not that the talks have stopped – if anything they’re going fairly well. Instead, the Speaker of the Commons has thrown a spanner in the works by suggesting that the vote may never happen. Bercow has used a statement to the House to say that he will not permit a third meaningful vote on the deal to take place – unless there are substantial changes to the deal on the table. Bercow surprised the government with the impromptu statement. In it, he invoked a

Ross Clark

John Bercow is right to block a third vote on May’s deal

I don’t know how religiously John Bercow reads Coffee House, but I am pleased that he has taken the advice I gave here on Saturday to use his powers to block a third ‘meaningful vote’ on Theresa May’s deal. This afternoon, the Speaker has made a statement to MPs that he intends to use his powers to do just this – on the grounds of a long-standing convention that a motion cannot be brought before the Commons if it is substantially the same as a motion that has already been defeated during the current session of Parliament. In one fell swoop Bercow has undermined what had seemed to be Theresa

James Forsyth

May should pledge to resign – it’s not too late to save her legacy

Allies of Theresa May have long talked about how she wants her legacy to be about more than Brexit. But the brutal truth is that there is no such legacy available to her. Rather, her choice is between being the Prime Minister who got a withdrawal agreement through or the one who had to ask for a long, humiliating extension. If May wants to increase the chances of the former being her legacy and not the latter, then she is going to have to promise to go at some point before the next meaningful vote. Earlier today, one office holder in the ERG told me that if May said she

Robert Peston

Britain could be heading for a nine-month Brexit delay

Nigel Dodds of the DUP has not yet agreed a deal with Theresa May to bring his troop of ten MPs – and some of their Tory ERG Brexiter allies – into her camp for that momentous and precedent-smashing third “meaningful vote” on her Brexit deal. This means as of now the third “meaningful vote” remains the stuff of myth and legend; as I said on Saturday, it may not happen at all, or at least not before the European Union council on Thursday. A minister close to the PM tells me the cabinet expects the EU to grant the UK a Brexit delay of nine months – which would

Steerpike

Watch: Fiona Onasanya pleads her innocence

Where is Fiona Onasanya, and will she fight to remain as an MP? This has been the question on everyone’s lips ever since the courts rejected the former Labour MP’s appeal against conviction for perverting the course of justice. Onasanya has been spotted in the voting lobbies since the decision — possibly becoming the first ever MP to vote with an electronic tag round her ankle — but has remained entirely silent about whether she would fight the petition, and vow to continue to represent Peterborough as an MP. Now it seems she has come out of hiding. Onansaya has just released a video (complete with a dramatic cityscape backdrop), in