Politics

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

Friday

The Spectator

Full text: Theresa May’s Downing Street statement on Brexit

Yesterday, I was in Salzburg for talks with European leaders. I have always said that these negotiations would be tough – and they were always bound to be toughest in the final straight. While both sides want a deal, we have to face up to the fact that – despite the progress we have made – there are two big issues where we remain a long way apart. The first is our economic relationship after we have left. Here, the EU is still only offering us two options. The first option would involve the UK staying in the European Economic Area and a customs union with the EU. In plain

Thursday

Katy Balls & James Forsyth

Corbyn’s our fault

As Labour gathers for its conference in Liverpool this weekend, the Conservatives will be watching with trepidation, rather than the schadenfreude with which they initially treated the rise of the hard left. Underestimating the appeal of Jeremy Corbyn was one of the biggest mistakes the Tories have made in the past two years, and the party has had plenty of time to ask why Labour ended up doing so well. James Cleverly, the party’s deputy chairman, believes that he has the answer. ‘A big, big chunk of that was our fault,’ he says when we meet at Conservative Campaign Headquarters. ‘The Prime Minister, as we know from all the time

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Chequers goes pop: Theresa May’s Salzburg catastrophe

Chequers, as the journalist Chris Deerin has pointed out, goes pop. Which wry and funny as it is for those of us of a certain age will not be cheering up Theresa May. Because the EU summit in Salzburg has been a personal catastrophe for her. And worse than that, it was an avoidable catastrophe. Because every EU expert bar those she employs in Whitehall has been saying very loudly for weeks that the trade and commercial proposal in her Chequers Brexit plan would never win favour among the EU 27. So the question is why she waited to have that so publicly and humiliatingly stated by the EU’s president

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Donald Tusk tells Theresa May to chuck Chequers

The government weren’t expecting a dramatic breakthrough in the Brexit talks at Salzburg. But they were hoping for some more positive mood music, for some language that would help Theresa May get through party conference. But Donald Tusk has just issued a broadside against Chequers: ‘The suggested framework for economic co-operation will not work, not least because it is undermining the single market.’ Tusk’s brutal language makes it that much harder for Theresa May to maintain that the EU is engaging with Chequers and her plans for a European Traded Goods Area and a Facilitated Customs Arrangement. There’ll now be huge pressure on her – including from within her own

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The benefits of a blind Brexit

Brexit won’t be over by 29 March 2019. Britain will legally leave the European Union on that date. But that won’t tell us what Britain’s future relationship with the bloc will be, or how closely aligned the UK will be to the EU. Those are questions for which we will have to wait for the answers. What MPs will vote on before next March is not a ‘Brexit deal’ but a withdrawal agreement. Theresa May won’t come to the Commons and table her Chequers plan for approval, which is just as well given that she doesn’t currently have the votes to pass it. Rather, she will put forward an agreement

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Jaguar’s boss isn’t scaremongering: the UK car industry is in big trouble

‘I’m afraid I think he’s making it up,’ was the retort of Tory MP Sir Bernard Jenkin on Monday’s Today programme to the claim by Ralf Speth, boss of Jaguar Land Rover, that a bad Brexit deal could put tens of thousands of jobs at risk in JLR and its suppliers, and cost his company £1.2 billion a year. In the same speech last week, Speth pointed out that the lack of any sort of Brexit clarity means he has no idea whether his UK factories will be able to operate on 30 March next year — or whether even the ‘tiny’ border delays Jenkin concedes are likely will cripple

Paul Collier

The hard centre

The Conservative party has to move beyond Brexit and leaders: what is it going to be about? I suggest it has to be about healing capitalism. Capitalism is the only system that is capable of delivering mass prosperity, but it cannot be left on autopilot. Once every few decades it veers off track and requires active public policy. In the mid-19th century, the old Tory party was revolutionised by Disraeli’s ‘one nation’ agenda, correcting the social catastrophes of early industrialisation. In the 1930s, there was no Disraeli: indeed, no political party rose to the challenge of mass unemployment, which was addressed as an inadvertent by-product of rearmament. During the 1980s,

Quentin Letts

Causes without a rebel

One of the better plays at the National Theatre in recent weeks has been about a 21st-century banker, Judy, who quits her job to become a 1950s-style housewife. In Laura Wade’s Home, I’m Darling, Judy ditches her corporate wardrobe for a kitchen pinny and feather duster. She could have stepped from the Good Housekeeping domestic guide my mother was given after her wedding in 1954. Judy scorns modern technology and she dislikes coarse language. She is, at initial view, a faux-nostalgic figure, to be mocked. Yet the word used for her stance is ‘rebellion’ and by the end of the play she may, to a small extent, have made us

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Donald Tusk’s Brexit warning spells trouble for Theresa May

What to make of Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council’s latest tweet? Ahead of tonight’s dinner in Salzburg, he says: ‘Today there is perhaps more hope but there is surely less and less time. On the Irish question and the framework for economic cooperation the UK’s proposal needs to be reworked’ The first sentence is classic Tusk; he has a fondness for statements that are meant to sound profound. His comments on the Irish border are also to be expected. The UK and the EU are still 48 kilometres apart on this question and playing a dangerous game of chicken. Theresa May will use tonight’s dinner to try

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Will EU leaders chuck Chequers in Salzburg?

This week’s EU summit in Salzburg should settle three important Brexit questions of profound important to this country’s future and that of the PM too. Most importantly, the leaders of the EU 27 are being asked by their Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and the EU president Donald Tusk how specific and prescriptive they want the Political Declaration on Britain’s prospective relationship with the EU to be. In a way it is astonishing, with just six months to go before we’re out, that Barnier and Tusk do not know something so fundamental about their wishes. And truthfully it is mostly about finding out from the German chancellor Angela Merkel whether she

Tuesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The unwelcome distraction waiting for the PM in Salzburg

Theresa May heads to Salzburg tomorrow to try and persuade the leaders of the EU27 of the merits of her Brexit plan. But there’ll be an unwelcome distraction for her in the morning. I understand that the European Commission will issue a reasoned opinion in the Olaf case, where the Commission accuses the UK of failing to prevent customs fraud on shoes and textiles imported from China and is demanding over two billion euros in lost revenue. The UK continues to contest this case, and I understand it has asked the Commission for more information on various points. But the timing of this reasoned opinion has raised eyebrows in government

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The problem with the Brexit migration report

Farming out the development of post-Brexit UK migration policy to a professor from the LSE was a political masterstroke by the former Home Secretary Amber Rudd. How much harder it will be for Remainers to condemn the government’s position on migration as some kind of racist, xenophobic exercise knowing that it has been formed in one of the liberal establishment’s favourite seats of learning. Yet there is nothing in Sir Alan Manning’s report which could not have come from the pen of a ‘populist’ politician trying to satisfy public grievance on migration. While it is no doubt true that some people voted Brexit in the hope of stopping all migration,

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Vince Cable fluffs his ‘erotic spasm’

Vince Cable’s big moment at the Lib Dem party conference has arrived – but unfortunately for the Lib Dem leader he managed to fluff his lines. Cable was set to use his keynote speech to accuse Brexiteers of pursuing an ‘erotic spasm’ in leaving the EU. But that’s not quite what he actually said: Talk about an anti climax…

Tom Slater Tom Slater

Vince Cable’s Brexit gag is a cry of desperation

Vince Cable has succeeded by one measure at this year’s Lib Dem conference: he’s actually managed to make news. With his Boris-esque aside in his speech today, that Tory Brexiteers are guilty of inflicting ‘years of economic pain justified by the erotic spasm of leaving the EU’, he has, however briefly, drawn attention to a conference that few will be attending, and even fewer will realise is happening; a conference at which the highlight so far has been anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller telling the crowd of assembled Lib Dems that she’s not a Lib Dem. His quip does, nevertheless, reek of desperation. After their bruising years in coalition, the Lib

James Kirkup James Kirkup

How John McDonnell wooed Mumsnet | 18 September 2018

As so often these days, if you want real political insight, go to Mumsnet. In a web chat there today, John McDonnell has offered extensive proof that – whatever you think of his politics and policies – he is an extremely professional and skilful political communicator. Mumsnet, as Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and countless others will remember, is about the toughest gig out there: you’re faced with a bombardment of questions ranging from traditional political analysis to deeply personal issues and of course humour, much of it biscuit-related. Striking the right tone is very, very hard. These days, Mumsnet is even harder for politicians because an awful lot of users

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Philip May falls foul of the Maybot

Picture the scene: it’s Friday night at Chequers and the Prime Minister and her husband are letting their hair down. While relaxing by watching a quiz show and drinking a cup of tea, Philip May’s flower knowledge falls short – and the Maybot is not impressed: Philip May: They are very nice chrysanthemums. Theresa May: They’re not chrysanthemums. Philip: Dahlias! Why do I keep getting this wrong? Theresa: You keep calling dahlias, chrysanthemums Perhaps it’s best if Philip sticks to his ‘boy jobs’….

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Tory apologists for Viktor Orbán should be ashamed of themselves

To think they said Brexit would cost us friends. The UK Government has found itself a new chum in Viktor Orbán, Hungarian prime minister and global alt-right pin-up. Last week, the European Parliament voted to initiate Article 7 proceedings against Hungary, citing its lurch towards authoritarianism. Fifteen Tory MEPs voted against while a further two abstained. Scotland’s Baroness Mobarik was the only one to break ranks. Makes you proud to be British. Article 7.1 of the Treaty allows MEPs to refer a member state to the Council to determine if its actions present ‘a clear risk of a serious breach’ of the values detailed in Article 2, namely ‘respect for

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Wanted: A Conservative policy agenda (two years late)

Theresa May has quite a few challenges to meet this conference season. One is obviously to avoid the sort of farce that her speech descended into last year. Another is to try to unite the warring wings of her party and convince her MPs that Chequers really is the only game in town. But equally as important is the need to show she has things she wants to do when it comes to domestic policy. This is hard: May hasn’t really managed to give that impression at any stage of her premiership, so to start in what feels like the swan song isn’t ideal. Added to that is the general

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Tory MEPs were right not to denounce Viktor Orban

You would never know it from the shrill media coverage, but Tory MEPs’ refusal to back the EU’s censure of Viktor Orban’s Hungary is one of the most principled things they have ever done. They are, of course, being denounced as Orban apologists, as cheerleaders for the authoritarian turn Hungary has taken under his prime ministership. Nonsense. They have taken a stand against authoritarianism. Against the authoritarianism of the European Union, whose technocratic arrogance has now reached such dizzy heights that it presumes the moral authority to punish nation states for doing what their own people, the electorate, have asked them to do. That is a far greater crime against

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why should we listen to the IMF’s Brexit warning?

Why are we so addicted to economic forecasts? We’ll know they are going to turn out to be wrong because they always do. And yet still we can’t seem to stop ourselves hanging on their every word. This morning it is the IMF’s turn, once more, to have its forecasts for the UK economy treated with undue seriousness. The Guardian reports that the IMF ‘backs Theresa May’s warnings over no-deal Brexit’ – by saying a ‘no deal’ scenario would lead to ‘substantial costs’ for the UK. But even May’s Chequers deal will condemn Britain to economic mediocrity, according to the IMF. The FT reports that, in the case of a