Politics Archives

Wednesday

13 Feb 2019

Why Brexiteers are getting worried

The world has become a very strange and unsettling place. Exhibit one is that a senior Tory Brexiter just now pulled out of being on my show tonight, because we didn’t have enough proper Leave-voting Brexiters on the programme. “The programme was startlingly unbalanced! Every guest but me having voted or campaigned for Remain,” the Brexiter said. “I hope you can understand my concern at the lack of balance for one of the country’s top political programmes”. Well actually I could not. Because this senior politician would have been interviewed at the start of the programme, in an impartial way, and with the space to express important arguments. And actually

Theo Hobson

Victoria Bateman’s naked Brexit stunt isn’t feminist

Dr Victoria Bateman’s naked Brexit stunt should not be seen in terms of modern feminism but in terms of early modern religious performance art, especially that of the Ranters and Quakers. The trauma of the seventeenth century English civil war caused some strange religious groups to emerge, and some of them went in for shocking little stunts, or ‘happenings’, in the hippy-sixties term. Cromwell’s frail Commonwealth got rid of the old established church, and deciding what to put in its place was a bit like Brexit. Lots of Puritans wanted their new orthodoxy set up, but plenty of liberals wanted a more open-ended free for all, a ‘no-deal’ scenario perhaps.

Tuesday

12 Feb 2019

Henry Newman

What is the naked Brexit academic trying to achieve?

Earlier this morning, I pitched up at Good Morning Britain’s studios for what was billed as a Brexit debate with Dr Victoria Bateman A.K.A. the naked academic. I’d been warned in advance that she would be naked. And when I was shown into the studio, she was – totally. We hadn’t met backstage in the green room, as Dr Bateman was in her own dressing room. Presumably she was busy writing her slogan across her torso (she kindly offered later to allow ITV to film this process). So, we were only introduced under the studio lights. We had a brief chat during the commercial break, as Dr Bateman handed her

John Keiger

A no-deal Brexit spells trouble for Emmanuel Macron | 12 February 2019

In 1919, a 31-year-old Tommy from Bristol, named George Robertson – fresh from fighting alongside French troops on the Somme – married Suzanne Leblond in Abbeville, northern France. In 2017, George Robertson’s great grandson, Emmanuel Macron, became French president. Macron embarked on a policy that, while acknowledging Franco-British friendship, sought to ensure that Britain did not prosper from Brexit. Yet Macron’s stance appears increasingly counter-intuitive. Of all the European leaders, Macron is noted for being the most intransigent in his public utterances on Britain’s Brexit negotiations. He has nailed his pro-European colours to the mast and insisted that, in opting for Brexit, the British people must bear the consequences even if, as

Robert Peston

What Olly Robbins has revealed about May’s Brexit plan

My colleague Angus Walker has a grade A scoop on how Theresa May’s chief Brexit negotiator, Olly Robbins, thinks the PM may be able to rescue her Brexit deal. The headlines are these. 1) He expects MPs to be presented with a choice in March of her deal or a potentially very lengthy delay to Brexit. This is significant since even today the PM denied she was remotely contemplating a Brexit postponement. 2) Robbins concedes that the controversial Northern Ireland backstop was conceived as a ‘bridge’ to the long-term trading relationship between the UK and EU. This will be explosive because Tory Brexiters always feared the PM secretly saw some

Tom Goodenough

Team Juncker shows it has learned nothing from Selmayr-gate

Martin Selmayr is no stranger to using Twitter to offer his insight and call out those he thinks have got it wrong. But this morning, on the big news in Brussels, the so-called ‘Monster’ is keeping quiet. While Selmayr has today shared messages about ‘clean vehicles’, ‘TeamJuncker’ and (of course) Brexit, he has had nothing to say on the story relating to the controversial circumstances of his appointment as secretary general of the EU Commission. This morning, the European Ombudsman closed its inquiry into Selmayr’s elevation to the top job; its findings are damning. The Ombudsman says that ‘Mr Selmayr’s appointment did not follow EU law, in letter or spirit, and

James Forsyth

May’s statement showed how she will try to pass her Brexit deal

Theresa May’s statement to the Commons didn’t contain anything dramatic. But it did show how May is going to try and pass a deal. There was lots in the statement on workers’ rights, an attempt to make the deal more palatable to Labour MPs. But May also sought to reassure her own side by ruling out Jeremy Corbyn’s customs union plan far more explicitly than she did in her Sunday night letter to him. There was little sign of a cross party consensus in May and Corbyn’s exchanges. The tone was, predictably, partisan. Things became even more heated when the SNP leader Ian Blackford got involved. He shouted ‘liar’ at

Steerpike

Watch: Guy Verhofstadt warns Brexiteers may end up ‘on the guillotine’

It was only last week that EU leader Donald Tusk caused outrage across the Channel with an unusual outburst on the Brexit negotiations, when he said that that those who had sought Brexit without a plan deserved a ‘special place in hell.’ Now it appears that other EU leaders are falling over themselves to make even more outrageous statements. Today it was the turn of Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s Brexit coordinator to take a swipe at British parliamentarians. In a press conference in Strasbourg, the MEP referenced an article written by Politico’s Tom McTague, which compared a number of Britain’s Brexiteers to the leaders of the French revolution. Verhofstadt continued

Ross Clark

David Cameron has helped Theresa May – even if he didn’t mean to

David Cameron has been widely blamed for the Conservatives’ current predicament, but in one sense he has saved the party – if inadvertently. It is thanks to his drive for younger candidates that Theresa May’s government has avoided succumbing to a no-confidence vote. May does not have a majority, and relied on DUP votes to help her survive a no-confidence vote last month. Yet even DUP votes would not be enough to save her were she losing her own MPs at the rate John Major did in the mid 1990s. In 1992, Major was elected with a seemingly healthy majority of 21. Yet over the course of the following five

Rupert Darwall

The problem with Norway Plus

Clear thinking is what Brexit requires but clear thinking is the one thing most lacking. An example is how the Norway model has morphed into Norway plus. As it gathered political support, in the process, it lost any semblance of coherence. At the weekend Labour MPs Alan Johnson and John Denham touted Norway Plus as a compromise offering ‘something for everyone.’ Straight Norway would see Britain exercising its legal rights as a contracting party under the original 1993 treaty establishing the European Economic Area (EEA). It offers two strategic advantages over the Prime Minister’s disastrous approach. First, it would remove the structural negotiating imbalance favouring the European Commission. If the

Monday

11 Feb 2019

Angelos Sofocleous

What happened when I was banned from a free speech debate on campus | 11 February 2019

It’s clear that our universities have a problem with free speech. We’ve recently witnessed students at the University of Oxford not only protesting Steve Bannon’s appearance at Oxford Union, but attempting to prevent others from even attending the talk. Only last week, Peter Hitchens had a talk he was due to give cancelled at the University of Portsmouth because the university felt that this would not chime with the students’ union’s LGBT+ month. I’ve also fallen foul of this tendency towards censorship on campus: when I shared a Spectator article in November asking ‘Is it a crime to say women don’t have penises?’, I lost my position as president-elect of humanist

Robert Peston

Why I think a no-deal Brexit is now the most likely outcome

Most MPs tell me they believe a no-deal Brexit is a remote prospect. They are wrong. I would argue it is the most likely outcome – unless evasive action is taken much sooner than anyone expects. Here is why. 1) The probability is low of the PM securing substantial enough changes to the widely loathed backstop to win a vote for her deal exclusively from Tory MPs, the DUP and a modest number of leave-supporting Labour MPs; 2) The probability is also low of the PM risking the break up of her party by pursuing all the way to a formal agreement the negotiations just started with Corbyn and Labour

Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn: the EU must be defeated

Oh dear. Jeremy Corbyn was caught out last week after a video emerged of him claiming that the European Union was creating a ‘military Frankenstein’. It now seems as if that criticism of EU wasn’t a one off. Here is Corbyn making a speech at a rally in 2010 in which he says the EU must be ‘defeated’: He told the crowd: ‘They – the worlds bankers – the international Monetary Fund, the European Union, are utterly united in what they want. Utterly united in deflation, suppressing the economy and creating unemployment. We need to be equally united…to show that the voice of those campaigning for peace, justice, socialism, will

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: breaking up is hard to do

The invitation to competitors to write a poem entitled ‘Breaking up is hard to do’ produced an inventive, accomplished entry full of witty flourishes, from David Kilshaw’s Brexit-inspired twist on Neil Sedaka — ‘Commons, commons, down, dooby, do, down down…’ — to Dorothy Pope’s poignant haiku — ‘plum blossom petals/ mistaken now for snowflakes/ so cold is your love’. Philip Roe and Adrian Fry were especially strong performers but they were pipped by the winners below who earn £25 each. Brian Murdoch In Dame Europa’s school the teachers peered Out at the children thronging the school yard. The term seemed to have lasted forty years, But just now, breaking up

Robert Peston

Are May and Corbyn’s Brexit visions coming together?

No matter how many times Theresa May reminds us, it is easy to forget that Labour’s manifesto committed it to delivering Brexit. Equally it is hard to remember that the notorious motion passed by the last Labour conference that opened the door to the party’s possible support for a Brexit referendum – as a last resort – was also a restatement of the party’s pledge to deliver its own vision of how to leave the EU. So it was rational for the Prime Minister to respond in good faith to Jeremy Corbyn’s written offer to negotiate Brexit terms that he and his party could support. And quite apart from the convention

Sunday

10 Feb 2019

Robert Peston

Why we are still no closer to a Brexit prognosis

I have this mental image of Brexit Britain on a hospital ward waiting for treatment that never comes. We are hanging on for an operation that is supposed to make us stronger and happier, but we still don’t know what kind of procedure it will be – or even when or whether it will definitely happen. This coming Thursday was supposed to be a big day. It was billed as when MPs would vote on whether Brexit should be postponed, and what kind of Brexit they might eventually support. But it now looks as though the consultant in charge of our treatment, the prime minister, will announce on Tuesday or Wednesday

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: A no deal would be ‘potentially devastating’ for Northern Ireland, Blair says

Tony Blair – No deal ‘potentially devastating’ for Northern Ireland Sophy Ridge began the morning with a wide-ranging interview with Tony Blair. The conservation inevitably turned to Brexit, something to which the former Prime Minister has long been opposed. Blair strongly criticised those politicians calling for a ‘no deal’ outcome after March 29th, arguing that they had ‘played fast and loose’ with the Northern Irish peace process from day one: Politicians are "playing fast and loose" with the peace process in Northern Ireland. Former prime minister Tony Blair tells #Ridge a no-deal #Brexit would be devastating for NI. He says no one could "responsibly" propose a no-deal Brexit: https://t.co/LAn85tyQGL pic.twitter.com/VD2K0rfPFs

Charles Moore

Brexit reveals which people really care about representative government

I am in a small minority in turning off the news when it is not about Brexit. The slow, agonising process fascinatingly brings out what people in public life really think. Do they care about representative government, or not? My estimate is that 60 per cent of the House of Commons do — while differing about exactly how to apply the principles — and about 40 per cent are perfectly indifferent, seeking their own personal or ideological advantage. By the standards of most legislatures in history, this is a more impressive proportion than people recognise. This article is an extract from Charles Moore’s Spectator notes, available in this week’s magazine.

Saturday

9 Feb 2019

Steerpike

Chris Grayling’s shipless shipping contract sinks

Last year, there was much mirth when it was revealed that transport minister, Chris Grayling, had awarded a £14m contract for extra ferries between Ramsgate and Ostend in the case of no deal to ‘Seaborne Freight’ – a company which had no ships, and no record of chartering them. Suspicions that Seaborne might not be the most reliable continued to grow when the company was shown to have no trading history and appeared to have borrowed its website’s terms & conditions from a takeaway company. Now it appears that scepticism of Seaborne might have been entirely justified. Following reports in the Telegraph, the Department for Transport confirmed today that it has

James Forsyth

Corbyn has complicated May’s Brexit strategy

Number 10 had hoped that if it could hold off the Cooper amendment again next week, then it could eke out a concession from the EU on the backstop. But as I say in The Sun this weekend, this approach has been complicated by Jeremy Corbyn’s soft Brexit plan. This scheme, obviously, appeals to the EU: it would keep Britain in the customs union and following many of the rules of the single market. ‘The Labour party and the EU are operating in tandem to some extent, which is worrying for us’ frets one Cabinet Minister. So, May needs to persuade Brussels that such a deal couldn’t get through because