Politics

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

Thursday

Richard Ekins

Why Brexit won’t lead to a bonfire of human rights

Faced with the prospect of the UK’s departure from the EU, some Britons are contemplating urgent measures, whether applying for an Irish passport or migrating to New Zealand. Nothing wrong with either, of course, but the latter is an odd reaction. After all, one of the implications of Brexit is that it restores the fundamental similarity between the structure of government in the UK and New Zealand, the last two bastions of the Westminster constitution. In both countries, parliamentary sovereignty is fundamental and judges do not reign supreme. EU membership has long complicated this picture, with the UK subject to binding European law, enforced by the confident and inscrutable –

Robert Peston Robert Peston

MPs need to wake up and see reality: the choice is a customs union or no-deal Brexit

It is time for Labour and Tory MPs to wake up and see the Brexit reality staring them in the face. Which is — after tonight’s demonstration that the government doesn’t have the votes to push through a Brexit plan of any description with simply its MPs and those of Northern Ireland’s DUP — all MPs face a simple choice. Forget the idea floated by Olly Robbins in a Brussels bar of a 21-month Brexit delay – which was overheard by my ITV News colleague Angus Walker. I cannot find a single senior serious person in or around the EU who thinks it is going to happen. Truthfully they regard it

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

After Brexit defeat, Downing Street insists nothing has changed

After Theresa May mysteriously evaporated from the Commons following tonight’s government defeat, Downing Street has issued a statement insisting that nothing has changed. The official line is, somewhat tortuously, that the previous set of indicative votes from MPs were the ones that mattered, whereas this one didn’t. A No.10 spokesman said: ‘While we didn’t secure the support of the Commons this evening, the Prime Minister continues too believe, and the debate itself indicated, that far from objecting to securing changes to the backstop that will allow us to leave with a deal, there was a concern from some Conservative colleagues about taking no deal off the table at this stage.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

MPs have dealt May’s Brexit negotiating strategy a big blow

The government has been defeated by 45 votes tonight. This loss doesn’t force a change in policy on Theresa May, but it is a significant blow to her negotiating strategy. She has been saying to the EU that with legally binding changes to the backstop, she could get the withdrawal agreement through parliament. The EU will argue that this result shows that even with changes to the backstop, May couldn’t get a deal through. They’ll therefore become more forceful in their attempt to urge her to come to an arrangement with Jeremy Corbyn on a customs union. The ERG have, ironically, made it less likely that May will get anything

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Defeat looms for government as Brexiteers decide to abstain in key vote

The European Research Group has decided it will abstain on the government’s Brexit motion, which MPs will be voting on in the next hour. An ERG source said that there was a ‘collective decision’ at a meeting this afternoon to abstain on the motion if no other amendments to it were passed. Voting has begun, but Anna Soubry has suggested that she won’t be pushing her motion calling for the government’s no-deal assessments to be published, after ministers said they would do so. This means that there will definitely be a vote on the main motion, and with the ERG abstaining, the government looks as though it is heading for

Steerpike Steerpike

Chris Williamson: Churchill was in the ‘right place at the right time’

Winston Churchill is a war hero who saved Britain from the Nazis. At least, that is what many think of a man consistently hailed as one of the greatest ever Brits. Not so Chris Williamson. Instead, the Labour MP agrees with the shadow chancellor John McDonnell that Churchill was a ‘villain’. Speaking on the BBC’s Politics Live, Williamson also said Churchill was in the ‘right place at the right time’ when the war was won and whatever Churchill’s achievements in stopping Adolf Hitler, ‘some of the things he said’ meant he was no hero. Mr S thinks it’s a shame that Williamson doesn’t take the same rigorous assessment of character

James Forsyth James Forsyth

If May loses tonight, the EU will want her to do a deal with Corbyn 

Today’s vote is not a meaningful vote. But that doesn’t mean it is meaningless. If Theresa May’s motion is passed tonight, it will enable her to carry on saying to the EU that parliament supports her approach and that a legally binding change to the backstop is needed to get a deal through. But if May loses, then the EU will be confirmed in its view that May doesn’t have a stable majority for a deal even with changes to the backstop. Brussels will become surer and more vocal about its view that the way for the UK to pass the withdrawal agreement is for May to do a deal

Britain can manage no-deal Brexit tariffs

As the possibility of no deal gets closer, the hyperbole is getting more hyperbolic. But catastrophe metaphors like crashing out, falling off a cliff edge, and burning in hell ignore the less than exciting fact that leaving the EU without a deal leaves us, at most, with transitional problems that can be managed. Despite what Donald Tusk says, people who campaigned to leave the EU thought carefully about how best to overcome any temporary problems the absence of a free trade arrangement might bring. Most notably Business For Britain published a massive 1,000-page analysis called Change or Go, How Britain would gain influence and prosper outside an unreformed EU as early

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: John McDonnell says Winston Churchill was a ‘villain’

It’s fair to say that shadow chancellor John McDonnell is no stranger to controversy, but last night he managed to outdo himself when he entered into the debate on Winston Churchill’s legacy. At a Politico event, McDonnell was asked by the host, Jack Blanchard, whether Winston Churchill was a hero or a villain. After a dramatic pause, the shadow chancellor replied: ‘Tonypandy: villain’ McDonnell was referring to the Tonypandy industrial dispute, which took place in the coal mines of Rhondda, Wales. Churchill, who was then home secretary, took the controversial decision to send police and troops to quell the riots that were taking place there. Watch the exchange here:  

Steerpike Steerpike

Does Labour’s Wavertree CLP have an anti-Semitism problem?

Tensions between the Labour leadership and some of its MPs reached breaking point once again this week, over the party’s failure to deal with anti-Semitism within its own ranks. Key to the dispute has been the treatment of Liverpool Wavertree MP, Luciana Berger, who her colleagues say has been targeted by a hard-left group in her local party because she is Jewish. The latest feud began on 7 February, when Wavertree’s Constituency Labour Party (CLP) tabled a motion of no confidence in the heavily pregnant Berger for ‘criticising’ Jeremy Corbyn. Soon after, it emerged that one of the members who had tabled the motion was, according to Jewish News, a 9/11 truther

John R. MacArthur

The hypocrisy of Jeff Bezos

It is tempting to view the blow-up between Amazon’s billionaire owner Jeff Bezos and David Pecker, publisher of the tabloid National Enquirer, with the peculiar glee some journalists experience when they cover a natural disaster: it can be exciting, fun even, to sit back and observe the flames. As political earthquakes go, the Bezos-Pecker face-off is spectacular, since Pecker is a long-time ally of Donald Trump and Trump is the sworn enemy of Bezos and the newspaper he owns, the Washington Post. Trump calls him ‘Jeff Bozo’, presumably because the Post has been so aggressive in its coverage of Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia and seems determined to bring down

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Corbyn’s crack-up

To say that the May administration is ‘the worst government anyone can remember’ is to abuse the English language. It isn’t a government but a collection of factions so far apart I am surprised they can stay in the same cabinet. On the backbenches the European Research Group operates as a separate English nationalist party. Everywhere Tory politicians are scrambling to position themselves to succeed Theresa May, rather than holding on to any notion as quaint as putting their country before their careers. Yet faced with this ungoverning government, a maladministration that is so exhausted it is running out of Conservative MPs who can serve as ministers, the opposition is

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tories must avoid complacency over Corbyn

Statistically, a Tory victory at the next election is unlikely. British voters tend not to grant a fourth term to governments: it has happened only once in our post-war history. That was under John Major in 1992 in an election in which the government lost 40 seats. But this time, the Tories would go into a general election as a minority government. If this were not handicap enough, they’ll also have to fight the election having spent years dealing with Europe, the subject that splits the party most deeply. Yet, remarkably, the Tories are still in with a chance of winning a fourth term. They have one man to thank

Patrick West

Underground ghost stations

If you’ve ever travelled on London’s Piccadilly Line, you may have noticed that on the stretch between Green Park and South Kensington, the north-facing tunnel twice changes to a peculiar dark grey rather than the familiar charcoal black. I always used to look out for these grey bricks when I took the Tube back home to Hammersmith. This is because I was obsessed with disused, or ‘ghost’ stations, and on this stretch were two of the most distinguished: Down Street and Brompton Road, both of which were closed in the 1930s. Down Street is of particular interest, having served in the following decade as a bunker for Winston Churchill during

Christopher Caldwell

Europe’s culture clash

Two weeks ago Luigi Di Maio, Italy’s vice-premier and Labour Minister and the top politician of the Five Star Movement (M5S), appointed a new commissioner for the UN cultural organisation Unesco. He chose the dog–whistling, bum-slapping sex–comedy actor Lino Banfi, star of How to Seduce Your Teacher, Policewoman on the Porno Squad and other films. The M5S was launched online by the 1980s comedian Beppe Grillo. It is run on the basis of a private computer operating system called Rousseau. Most Italians look at the M5S as either a breath of fresh air, a necessary gesture of defiance, or a ridiculous episode that will pass. But you need a sense

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Why Keynesian theory can’t dig us out of Brexit uncertainty

‘It is seldom wise to sacrifice a present evil for a doubtful advantage in the future,’ wrote John Maynard Keynes as a precocious undergraduate in 1904. As we contemplate what no deal might be about to bring, those words seem to confirm the view of his living followers that the sage who died in 1946 (though usually labelled a free-trader) would have voted Remain.      But he was also well known as a pragmatist, so it’s worth asking what he would be telling us to do now, as the cliff-edge looms while UK GDP growth has already fallen to its slowest rate since 2012, at 1.4 per cent last year, according

Wednesday

Rupert Harrison

The moral of the Olly Robbins row? Don’t base policy on a lie

Olly Robbins will be trying to avoid the Prime Minister today after his hurricane strength gaffe was splashed all over the newspaper front pages. He deserves a fair share of the criticism that has come his way, but I’m sure most of us have mouthed off a little too loudly in the pub after a stressful day in the office. The PM will be especially frustrated because he has undermined one of Theresa May’s central claims – that the choice facing Parliament is a binary one between her deal and no deal. But she can’t blame Robbins for the fragility of her position. In fact this is just a specific

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Brexiteer Tories threaten Valentine’s Day defeat

Tomorrow’s Brexit vote has gone from being billed the ‘Valentine’s Day massacre’ to threatening a desperately dull anti-climax, and then back again to being quite interesting. This latest development comes courtesy of the European Research Group, which has said it could vote against the government on the motion that has been tabled because they object to its wording. This is another one of those neutral motions expressing government policy, which allows MPs to table motions expressing their own views. It currently reads: ‘That this House welcomes the Prime Minister’s statement of 12 February 2019; reiterates its support for the approach to leaving the EU expressed by this House on 29

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Chris Grayling gives Jeremy Corbyn a helping hand at PMQs

How do you put people off thinking that a no-deal Brexit might be alright? Jeremy Corbyn clearly thinks the best way to do this is to talk about Chris Grayling and the mess over the contract for ferry services. The Labour leader made this the focus of his stint grilling Theresa May at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, asking how on Earth she could have confidence in her transport secretary when the awarding of the contract has been such an embarrassment. May defended Grayling, pointing to government spending on the railways as a reason for backing him. She also attacked Corbyn for choosing the ferries as a line of attack, arguing

Matthew Lynn

Mark Carney is finally right about Brexit | 13 February 2019

Cripes. At this rate the CBI will be putting out reports on Brexit’s potential benefits, George Osborne will be reminding us he could always see its upside, and even the FT will be running leaders saying Brexit doesn’t quite mean the end of the world. There have been plenty of twists and turns in our tortured departure from the European Union but few quite so unexpected as the apparent conversion of the Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney to the cause. In a speech yesterday, Carney didn’t opt for any of the apocalyptic stuff – no food on the shelves at Tesco, pensioners dying in hospitals because of