Politics Archives

Monday

18 Mar 2019

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

Steerpike

Is Theresa May being removed?

Only last night, it was reported that Tory rebels – including a former cabinet minister – were refusing to back May’s Brexit deal unless she promised to resign. Well it seems like they may have moved up their schedule. This morning, a removal van was spotted parked at the back of 10 Downing Street: Mr S can only wonder which loyal member of the party ordered it for the PM…

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson ‘read riot act’ in front of MPs for child abuse comments

Boris Johnson was given an angry lecture by a minister in the voting lobbies about his comments that money had been ‘spaffed up a wall’ for investigating child sex abuse, I understand. The former Foreign Secretary upset survivors of the crime by using the term during radio interview last week. He told LBC that ‘you, know £60 million I saw was being spaffed up a wall on some investigation into historic child abuse’. On Thursday night, as MPs were voting on the latest round of Brexit amendments, he was confronted in the lobby by Victims’ Minister Victoria Atkins who, according to several MPs present, ‘read him the riot act’. She

Guglielmo Verdirame

The UK’s legal right to leave the backstop is stronger than you’d think

As Sir Stephen Laws QC, Richard Ekins and I explained in a paper published by Policy Exchange this Friday, the good faith and best endeavours obligations in the Withdrawal Agreement and Northern Ireland Protocol (the backstop), in addition to the Joint Instrument agreed at Strasbourg, offer the UK far greater legal comfort than seems to be appreciated. This is not enough for some sceptics in the ERG who want to be reassured that, if the worst came to worst, the UK could leave the backstop unilaterally. There has been much discussion about Article 62 the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), which deals with the right of states

James Forsyth

Would the EU reject an Article 50 extension request?

Any extension to the Article 50 process would have to be unanimously agreed by the EU 27. This has led to some speculation that there might be a veto. But this strikes me as highly unlikely. One of the EU’s priorities in this negotiation has been to try and avoid blame, which explains Michel Barnier’s cack handed social media diplomacy. Rejecting a UK request to extend Article 50 would turn that approach on its head. It is also worth remembering that the EU is far from perfectly prepared for a no deal exit—what to do about the Irish border being the most glaring example of this—and if the EU forced

Sunday

17 Mar 2019

Martin Vander Weyer

Martin Vander Weyer’s stock picks for the post-Brexit era

The nation certainly needs optimism this week, so what better moment to start building our ‘UK Optimist Fund’ of shares with exciting prospects for the post-Brexit era, for which I invited suggestions last week? I’m grateful to all respondents but was particularly glad to hear from former minister Edwina Currie — whose stock picks show a penchant for high dividend yields — and this column’s very own veteran investor Robin Andrews, whose market eye has stood Spectator readers in such good stead over the years. Our underlying quest is a serious one. We’re heading into new territory in which businesses will clearly suffer if they previously depended on tariff-free access to European

Katy Balls

May under pressure to set an exit date to get her deal over the line

Is this the week Theresa May sets out an exit date for her departure from No. 10? There is hope in government that this will be the week the Prime Minister passes her Brexit deal. However, the price of her doing so could include a promise to resign before the second stage of negotiations begin later this year. No. 10 are working to try and ensure May passes her deal before this week’s EU council meeting where she has to try and seek an Article 50 extension. In a bid to try and do this, ministers have been locked in talks with the DUP all weekend on what could be

Robert Peston

Theresa May’s offer to the DUP

The prime minister’s frantic last attempt to persuade Northern Ireland’s DUP to back her third meaningful vote on Tuesday involves a promise that if the controversial backstop is ever triggered, Great Britain would adopt any new food and business rules that could be forced by the EU on Northern Ireland. This is a high risk offer by Theresa May to NI’s unionist party – which has huge clout with her because without its votes in parliament her government would collapse. As a minister told me, for the DUP to accept the offer it would have to trust that a future prime minister and government would honour the pledge – which

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Brexit on 29 March is ‘physically impossible’, Hammond says

Philip Hammond: Leaving the EU on 29 March ‘now physically impossible’… This morning, the Chancellor sat down with Andrew Marr following a week in which his Spring Statement was overshadowed by other events, including a series of critical Brexit votes in the Commons, and an appalling terrorist attack on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. With the government suffering another heavy defeat on its withdrawal deal, this time by a margin of 149 votes, Marr expressed the widespread concern that Brexit may never happen: AM: When are we going to leave the EU? PH: If the Prime Minister’s deal is able to muster a majority this week and get through,

Charles Moore

Why great minds get Brexit wrong

A besetting sin in this process has been over-cleverness. As so often in our history, the ‘stupid’ people are right. The Brexit question is a classic example of something which is simple but not easy. It is ‘Do you want to be ruled by those you can choose, or by those you can’t choose?’ Voters understood this, and gave a clear answer. Clever people keep complicating it. Three leading examples of this, I am afraid — Oliver Letwin, Nicholas Boles and Michael Gove — are good friends of mine. Precisely the qualities which endear them to me in private conversation are proving a menace to the public weal. Their ability to

Freddy Gray

Can the Republican Party finally win over minority voters?

Washington, DC Republican strategists have long complained about how, every election, the Democrats mobilise minority groups against them. Now they’re trying to turn the tables. Right-wing social media warriors, encouraged by @realDonaldTrump, have spent months talking about ‘Blexit’: a black voter exit from the Democratic party. This week, the President and others have begun calling for a ‘Jexodus’ — a Jewish exodus — too. How Trump must delight in those clunky portmanteaus. He knows that, while black voters usually vote Democrat, they are not altogether anti-Trump. He also senses that Jewish voters, traditionally the most left–liberal people in America, are alarmed at a new Democrat tendency to bash Israel. Suddenly,

Saturday

16 Mar 2019

Robert Peston

Why Theresa May might not hold another Brexit vote

Although the prime minister wants to hold another ‘meaningful vote’ on her Brexit plan next week, it is by no means certain that, when it comes to the crunch, she will choose to do so. I am told by her close colleagues, that two conditions must be met for her to go ahead with the vote, probably on Tuesday. First, Northern Ireland’s DUP must say on Monday that they have, at the last, changed their minds and have decided to vote with her. To be clear, there is no logical reason why they should do this, given that there will be no last-minute alteration to what they hate most about

Ross Clark

John Bercow should block a third vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal

Not for the first time the Speaker of the House of Commons appears to hold the Brexit process in his hands. There has been speculation this week that John Bercow has the power to prevent a third vote on Theresa May’s deal by resorting to a parliamentary convention which prevents a motion being debated in the Commons if it is substantially unchanged from a motion already brought before the House during the same session of parliament. Given that a third vote on May’s deal – likely to be called on Tuesday – would be essentially the same motion as was defeated by 149 votes last Tuesday (and not all that

John Connolly

Nick Boles quits his local party

The relationship between Tory MPs who want a softer Brexit and local Conservative members has been strained for some time. This morning things came to a head. The backbench MP Nick Boles, who has been campaigning to stop a no-deal Brexit, announced that he was resigning from his local Conservative association. Boles will still remain as the MP for Grantham and Stamford until the next election, and hopes to keep the whip as a Conservative during that time. In a letter to his local party, Boles set out the reasons for his decision to leave. He remembered how he had been at odds with his association over other issues in

James Forsyth

Better than 50:50 chance that the government can get the DUP on board for meaningful vote 3

This weekend all eyes are on the DUP. As I say in The Sun this morning, if the government can satisfy them, then Theresa May has a chance of winning the vote on Tuesday because of the domino effect that them coming across will set off. But if the DUP won’t come over, there’s no point holding a third meaningful vote. The DUP spent yesterday in intensive talks with senior government figures. I understand that these talks were broadly positive. One Cabinet Minister close to the process tells me that the chances of the DUP backing the deal are ‘a bit better than 50:50. I’d put it at 60:40.’ What

Charles Moore

I’ve been surprised how useless the civil service have been during the negotiations

Obviously the Prime Minister herself bears chief responsibility for Brexit mistakes, but she must have been terribly badly advised throughout, not only by political staff — who always get it in the neck when things go wrong — but by the professional civil service, which tends to escape censure. I have been genuinely surprised by the bureaucrats’ uselessness in the negotiations. In my Thatcher studies, now drawing peacefully to their close, I find that the mandarinate, though out of sympathy with Mrs Thatcher, did, on the whole, do its best for her. It was excited by the possibilities she opened up, and enjoyed surmounting the various crises. People like Anthony