Politics

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

Friday

Robert Peston Robert Peston

There’s only one way forward for Theresa May: keep Britain in the customs union

Hello from Brussels and the EU Council that promised a Brexit breakthrough and delivered nothing. So on the basis of conversations with well placed sources, this is how I think the Brexit talks are placed (WARNING: if you are fearful of a no-deal Brexit, or are of a nervous disposition, stop reading now). Forget about having any clue when we leave about the nature and structure of the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU. The government heads of the EU27 have rejected Chequers. Wholesale. And they regard it as far too late to put in place the building blocks of that future relationship before we leave on 29 March

Steerpike Steerpike

Momentum target Chuka’s new pay cheque

It used to be a truism on the left, that the one surefire way to motivate your base (and boost funding) was to attack the supposed greed and wealth of the hated Tories. But it appears that times have indeed changed. Not the tactics of course, but the targets: now the true enemies of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour are clearly… other Labour MPs. Mr Steerpike spied an email this morning from Momentum, the left-wing pressure group set up to support Jeremy Corbyn, that shows they are using Chuka Umunna’s £451 an hour salary as a funding drive. The Labour MP declared this week that he will be paid £65,000 a year

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Johnny Mercer is just saying what a lot of Tory MPs are thinking

Theresa May’s Hell Week 2.0 has aptly ended with a Conservative backbencher branding the current operation a ‘sh-t-show’. In an interview with The House magazine, Johnny Mercer has let rip – complaining that were he not a Conservative MP he wouldn’t vote Conservative. Mercer says the party’s values have changed since the Cameron days and if he weren’t an MP already ‘there would be absolutely no chance that I would try and be a Member of Parliament’ in the current climate. Mercer also rules out taking a job in the current administration – though it’s safe to presume that No 10 won’t be particularly minded to give one to him

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Alastair Campbell grilled over Brexit march hypocrisy

This weekend thousands of anti-Brexit protesters are expected to take to the streets in the name of the People’s Vote march – the campaign calling for a second referendum. Of all the ‘People’s Vote’ cheerleaders, Alastair Campbell is one of the loudest and he appeared on This Week to plug the event. Only Andrew Neil had a question to ask which seemed to catch Tony Blair’s former spin doctor by surprise: ‘Over 1m people marched, urging the government – of which you were a central figure – not to invade Iraq. You ignored them. Why should this government take any notice of 100k Remainers calling for a second referendum?’ "Over

Steerpike Steerpike

Conservative MP: I wouldn’t vote for the Conservatives

Oh dear. It’s not going great for Theresa May right now what with Brexiteers calling on her removal and Remainers also tiring of her dithering. But despite the rise in blue-on-blue hostilities, an interview with Johnny Mercer still manages to surprise. The Conservative backbencher – who has been branded a rising star – has used an interview with the House magazine to describe the current political situation as a ‘sh– show’. What’s more, he says that were he the Johnny Mercer who left the military in 2012, he wouldn’t go and vote for the Conservatives – or anyone for that matter: ‘I wouldn’t go and vote. Just being honest, I wouldn’t

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 18 October 2018

Twists and turns Jeremy Hunt, taking a group of EU foreign ministers around the maze at Chevening House in Kent, likened it to Brexit. It is not surprising if he finds the maze at Chevening difficult, because it was deliberately designed by the 2nd Earl of Stanhope, a mathematician, to be a greater challenge than garden mazes which preceded it. Most at the time had a simple rule: if you kept your hand on one hedge you would eventually reach the centre. This was known as a ‘simply connected’ maze. Chevening, however, was one of the first ‘multiply connected’ mazes, which don’t have a simple rule to find the centre.

The Spectator

Letters | 18 October 2018

Ireland’s day of reckoning Sir: John Waters is more right than he knows when he talks about the Irish attitude to Brexit (‘Paddy powerless’, 13 October). We Irish and our media have developed a consensus gene across many issues — without exception, all comfortably on the left. There is no significant media outlet in Ireland that would challenge in any way the prevailing orthodoxy here, which is that Brexit is an act of national self-harm. There is a certain smugness too, which is getting in the way of the reality, which is that we of all people should want Brexit to work to the benefit of both the EU and

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 18 October 2018

Can you think of a serious crime which does not involve hate or, at the very least, contempt? You must hate people to murder them, rape them, rob them, beat them up, post excrement through their letterbox or even defraud them. This intense hostility is a good reason for punishing such actions. The concept of ‘hate crime’ ignores this. It fastens on particular hatreds, making it worse for, say, a black person to call a white person a ‘white bastard’ than for him to call a black person a ‘f***ing bastard’ (or vice versa). Why? Racism, religious enmity, anti-gay feeling etc are sources and triggers of hate, so they are

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

The Spectator Podcast: Brexit, Bellingcat, and bondage with ethics

This week, Brexit negotiations grind to a halt again as Brussels and the UK draw mutually exclusive red lines on the Irish border problem. We talk to James Forsyth and Dan Hannan on what next for Brexit. We also look a little deeper into the methods and mission of Bellingcat, the investigators that unveiled the true identities of the Salisbury suspects. And last, we investigate a sex industry that is trying to become more ethical. Brexit negotiations have hit a brick wall again, and this time, no deal looks closer than ever before. The latest snag over the Irish border seems impossible to solve. But all this is a EU

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Theresa May tries to de-dramatise the transition period

With Conservative MPs across the spectrum seeing red over a mooted extension to the implementation period after the UK leaves the EU, Theresa May attempted to dial down the rhetoric in her EU Council press conference this afternoon. After a disappointing evening which saw the Prime Minister granted neither dinner nor sufficient progress by the EU27, May insisted to hacks that a good Brexit deal was still in sight. On reports that No 10 is planning to extend the transition period by up to a year in a bid to reach a deal, May did not deny the claims – but insisted that this wouldn’t really be an implementation period

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Chuka Umunna’s £451-an-hour new job will help his opponents no end

The news that Chuka Umunna is getting paid £451 an hour to chair a new centrist think tank will go down very well indeed with some of his Labour colleagues. It’s not so much that those MPs are just delighted for Umunna, as it is that they can use his £65,000 salary to undermine the chances of the new centrist party that this think tank might be working for. The Labour leadership is naturally worried about the idea of a breakaway centrist party, as it could rob Jeremy Corbyn of his chance to become Prime Minister at the next general election. But the Corbynite attack line against such a party

Alex Massie Alex Massie

There’s always someone else to blame for the Brexit mess

In a dismally competitive field, you might think Tory MP Andrew Bridgen must be the short-priced favourite for the next edition of the Deluded Brexiteer stakes. This newly-established classic always attracts a large field and the MP for North West Leicestershire’s suggestion that he, an Englishman, has the right to pop over to the Republic of Ireland and demand, and expect to be granted, an Irish passport shows that Mr Bridgen is in fine, early-season, form. He is tough to beat. And yet his success cannot be taken for granted. This is a wide-open race. Consider, for instance, the credentials of Andrea Jenkyns. The member for Morley and Outwood declares

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Tory MP’s Glaswegian accent troubles

We’ve all been there. Having to ask someone to repeat themselves because you couldn’t understand them is embarrassing enough. Spare a thought then for Sir Paul Beresford. In the Commons just now, the Tory MP failed to understand the Glaswegian accent of the SNP’s David Linden. Twice. Luckily for Beresford, deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle eventually stepped in to spare his blushes: “I think the answer might be helped if you can reply in writing,” he said. Oh dear…

Steerpike Steerpike

Is Theresa May moving out of No 10?

It’s fair to say that it’s been a tough couple of weeks for Theresa May. As the Brexit negotiations have stalled and her Chequers plan crumbles before her eyes, the PM could be forgiven for deciding that she’s had her fill of leading the country and packing up her bags and going. No 10 certainly gave the impression that’s she’s had enough this morning. Parked squarely outside the Prime Minister’s residence was this moving van: Seen outside 10 Downng St this morning. Looks like things are going even worse for Theresa May than she feared! pic.twitter.com/TAj2IP545W — Richard Burden (@RichardBurden27) October 18, 2018 Then again, perhaps it was sent by

Robert Peston Robert Peston

These are dangerous days for Theresa May

I am very sorry to do this to you, but it turns out that the incendiary extension to the UK’s period as a non-voting member of the EU – the mooted extra months in “transition” – isn’t really an extension. It is an “option” on an extension, the right to have an extension. Yes you guessed it: what we are talking about is another flipping backstop. And yes I too am losing the will to live as these Brexit talks descend from giant geopolitics to nightmarish logical puzzles. Here is the background. The EU cannot – it insists – agree our preferred version of the Northern Ireland backstop as part

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Extending the transition period won’t solve May’s Brexit woes

There is no Brexit transition period without a withdrawal agreement. There can be no withdrawal agreement without a deal on the Irish border, the trickiest issue as I say in the magazine this week, so extending the transition cannot solve this problem. Now, some say that extending the transition makes it less likely that the Northern Irish backstop would ever have to be used. But it is worth remembering that the DUP’s objections to the backstop are philosophical as much as practical, they don’t like even acknowledging the idea that Northern Ireland should be treated so differently to the rest of the UK. It is hard to imagine the DUP

Steerpike Steerpike

Michael Caine: Why I’m still a Brexiteer

With the Brexit negotiations hitting an impasse, Theresa May is under pressure from Brussels to make yet more concessions. Meanwhile, the ‘People’s Vote’ campaign is keen to tell anyone who will listen that public opinion has changed and Remain is now the mood of the country. Only as far as Mr S can tell the vast bulk of Brexiteers are still… Brexiteers. Speaking on the Today programme this morning, Michael Caine explained why he is still a Brexiteer in a conversation on optimism: MC: I’m a Brexiteer myself. JW: Still are? MC: Oh yeah, certainly. And people say ‘oh you’ll be poor’, you’ll be this, you’ll be that’. Well, I’d rather

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Why the civil service’s Brexit approach is damaging the negotiations

Sir Mark Sedwill, the acting cabinet secretary, wrote to the Times on Tuesday to defend the honour of Olly Robbins, the Prime Minister’s EU adviser, who is credited, if that is the mot juste, with delivering Brexit. He was right to do so, because Mr Robbins is not allowed, by the rules, to defend himself, and ministers have unfortunately become readier than in the past to brief against civil servants. (And it must be said, civil servants to brief against ministers: look at the torrent of stuff against Boris Johnson while he was Foreign Secretary.) But I would ask Sir Mark to consider the question as it looks from the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Irish problem | 18 October 2018

The story of Britain and Ireland’s relationship has, all too often, been one of mutual incomprehension: 1066 and All That summed up the view on this side of St George’s Channel with the line that ‘Every time the English tried to solve the Irish question, the Irish changed the question.’ But Theresa May’s problem right now is that the Irish — and the European Union — won’t change the question and the only answers they’ll accept are unacceptable to Mrs May and her cabinet. To the astonishment of many, the Irish border has become the defining issue of Brexit. There is now a serious and growing risk that the issue

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Westminster votes to stay in… at the Kennington Tandoori referendum

Ever since the Brexit referendum, it’s been a fact of British political life that the most important decisions, that will have the profoundest impact on society, will not be decided by politicians, but by the people. Therefore it made perfect sense when politicians questioned Westminster’s favourite curry house’s decision to update its menu, that the proposed menu change be put to a referendum. Sparks flew at the Kennington Tandoori – famous for delivering David Cameron’s final meal at No 10 – earlier this month after the restaurant updated its classics in the name of a street food revolution. Was this still a safe space for Parliamentarians? In order to find