Politics

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

Tuesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Brexiteers have their own numbers problem to deal with

This week was supposed to be the week that the European Research Group of backbench Brexiteers finally revealed their hand and published a Brexit plan to rival Theresa May’s. With the Prime Minister currently without the numbers to get her Chequers proposal through Parliament (even if there were no further concessions), there were concerns from May supporters that a viable alternative Brexit plan could be the final nail in the coffin. Only that rival plan hasn’t come to fruition after so-called creative differences among the Brexiteers over the mooted 140-page draft proposals. Matters weren’t helped when ‘mad’ plans to build a ‘Star Wars’-style missile shield to protect Britain from nuclear

Tanya Gold Tanya Gold

Boris’s Rules of love

I cannot speak for Boris Johnson’s politics, for he can barely speak for them himself, but his taste in restaurants in excellent. According to people that follow his romantic entanglements – for I follow none but my own – he dined in Rules of Covent Garden on Valentine’s Day with a woman whose name escapes me. But she looked like that healthy sort of upper-class – or fake upper class – girl who could, at a witch’s nod, be turned into a set of bowls; that is, athletic, and always laughing at something – but most probably nothing. Ah, Rules! My own best restaurant! The supper club of my unmarried

Steerpike Steerpike

Goldsmiths student group: Gulags ‘actually a compassionate, non-violent course of action’

Yesterday, the LGBTQ+ society of Goldsmiths University, emitted a series of tweets defending the educational value and ‘compassion’ of Soviet Gulags. Writing to ‘clarify what a gulag is’, the group sought to demonstrate that to send a friend, family member, or stranger to the gulag ‘is actually a compassionate, non-violent course of action’. It turns out that gulags – sometimes referred to as death camps – offered a chance to gain skills and ‘move up the ranks’! The tweets have since been deleted and as of this morning, LGBTQ+ Gold ‘are protecting our tweets temporarily for the sake of safeguarding’. Given that the number of people who died in the Gulag

Steerpike Steerpike

Alan Duncan’s outrageous double standards

Boris Johnson appears to have perfected the art of triggering his Westminster colleagues. First with letterboxes, now suicide vests, the former Foreign Secretary has developed a particular knack for driving fellow Tory MPs round the bend with a simple turn of phrase. This latest round of ‘outrage’ has seen a number of Conservative MPs condemn Johnson over his decision to compare Theresa May’s Brexit negotiating position to wearing a suicide vest. Particularly scandalised by the incident was a junior minister at the Foreign Office, also known as The Rt Hon Sir Alan Duncan. Sir Alan howled: ‘For Boris to say that the PM’s view is like that of a suicide

Steerpike Steerpike

The banks abandon Project Fear

Three senior bankers from Barclays, J.P. Morgan and Citi descended on the House of Commons today to give evidence to the Treasury Select Committee on the impact of a No Deal Brexit. Their interview must have seemed like perfect timing for Chancellor Philip Hammond, who is currently doing his own tour of the Commons and is expected to drum up support for Chequers by stoking fears of the calamitous impact of No Deal Unfortunately for Hammond, the three bankers were not nearly as morose as the Treasury could have hoped for. Instead they said the risks of No Deal were comparable to the instability they regularly faced across the world.

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Why an insurgent Remain could win a second vote | 11 September 2018

Cold calculation suggests there won’t be a second referendum. It could destroy both the Tory and Labour parties, and in any case, we appear to be heading for a classic EU fudge that will postpone hard choices. But as all predictions in 2018 are likely to be false, and the Tory right appears determined to provoke a crisis, it’s worth understanding why the People’s Vote campaign thinks that next time it will be different. They will be the insurgents and the Brexiters will be defending the status quo. Running against a failed establishment has always been a good tactic, but never more so than in the 2010s. Remain campaigners find

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Dawn Butler: Labour didn’t lose the general election

It’s been over a year since the last general election, but it looks like there are still some Labour MPs who are confused about their presence on the opposition benches. One such appears to be the shadow minister for women and equalities and Corbyn devotee, Dawn Butler. In an interview on TalkRadio this afternoon, it was put to the MP,  that Labour’s manifesto can’t have been that brilliant if they went on to lose the general election. Butler responded: ‘Well actually, we didn’t lose. We didn’t win, but we didn’t lose the election’ Dawn Butler: "We didn’t lose the election. We didn’t win." Watch ▼@Matthew_Wright | @DawnButlerBrent | @TVKev https://t.co/sv3MZUm41c

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

MPs should take more responsibility for disasters like Syria

Should there be an independent inquiry into the cost of doing nothing in Syria? That’s what MPs on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee think in any case, as they publish a report today that looks at the consequences of parliament’s decision not to intervene in the conflict in 2013. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has already told MPs on that committee that an independent inquiry isn’t possible, but their report argues that ‘the government needs to understand the role the UK’s inaction has had and learn the lessons from it for the future’. If a short inquiry and report can achieve this, the committee offers a grim preview of what such

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why GDP growth has nothing to do with the World Cup or the warm weather

We don’t hear much of the phrase ‘despite Brexit’ any more – it is just a little too obvious. Instead, pro-remain news sources have decided to apportion good economic news on the weather and the World Cup. This morning, the ONS announced that GDP growth in the three months to the end of July had risen to 0.6 per cent, the fastest for a year and doing much to make up for a sluggish first quarter. The Guardian was quick to identify what it saw as the reason, giving the news the headline: ‘UK Growth Picks up to 0.6 per cent after World Cup and heatwave boost.’ The BBC followed

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The new Swedish lesson: populism can be kept at bay by listening to voters | 10 September 2018

The world’s press was all geared up to write “Rabble-rousing Sweden Democrat breakthrough” but Sweden’s voters have not obliged. The populists were aiming for first place, but remain in third place, behind the conservatives. The Christian Democrats (led by Ebba Busch Thor, pictured, above) and the Centre Party gained more seats between them (16) than the Sweden Democrats did (13 seats, to a total of 62). The governing Social Democrats had their worst result for decades, but have still ended up the largest party by far. Swedes woke up to find parliament looking like this:- V: LeftParty (ie, former Communists). S: Social Democrats. MP: Greens. SD: Sweden Democrats (in the middle because

Sunday

Steerpike Steerpike

Boris Johnson back to old tricks

It’s been a busy weekend for Boris Johnson. After the former foreign secretary came under fire over his private life, Johnson appeared to make life more difficult for himself by penning an article for the Mail on Sunday in which he suggested that Theresa May’s Brexit strategy was akin to wearing a suicide vest. Various Tory MPs were quick to see red and vow to bring BoJo down. But Mr S can’t help but ask: did Johnson’s strategy go to plan after all? Back in 2013, he used a Telegraph article to reveal a great trick he had learned from an Australian friend (AKA Lynton Crosby): the dead cat strategy.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Sweden leaders’ debate shows how far language over immigration has moved

Sweden’s general election campaign ended with the Sweden Democrats in a huff and boycotting SVT, the state broadcaster, because it issued a statement distancing itself from comments made by Jimmie Åkesson in the leaders’ debate that it broadcast. Having a supposedly neutral state broadcaster pass judgement is the perfect gift for Åkesson, who said it demonstrates an establishment stitch-up and institutional bias. But actual debate itself offered a fascinating glimpse into how much the debate has shifted in Sweden – with leaders of all parties offering immigration-related facts that make a British listener gasp. We had seven party leaders, most of whom expressing views that they’d have denounced as racist not so

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Javid calls for ‘measured language’ after Boris’s ‘suicide vest’ comment

Sajid Javid: Boris Johnson should use ‘measured language’ Boris Johnson has been dominating the headlines today for a variety of reasons. The news that he and his wife Marina Wheeler are to divorce is juxtaposed alongside his comments in the Mail on Sunday that the government’s Brexit stance has ‘wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution – and handed the detonator to Michel Barnier’. His remarks have prompted outrage in some circles, most notably from his former Foreign Office colleague Sir Alan Duncan. Andrew Marr asked Home Secretary Sajid Javid if this was the right way for Johnson to conduct himself: When asked if he thought @BorisJohnson was islamophobic

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Labour MPs are conferring legitimacy on anti-Semitism

Former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has been roughed up enough lately and I am loath to add to the calumnies but something he keeps saying bothers me. ‘The hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.’ Sacks has dropped this aphorism into speeches and articles for the past few years and no wonder: it’s a pithier version of the Niemöller verse, a shorthand for the metastatic nature of prejudice. First of all, I’m not convinced it’s true. They always come for the Jews but they don’t always come for the Communists or the Catholics or the trade unionists, not least because the Communists and the Catholics and the trade

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Boris Johnson sparks a fresh outbreak of Tory civil war

Well, that didn’t take long. Just one week into the new parliamentary term and a case of civil war has broke out in the Conservative party over Boris Johnson. The former foreign secretary makes the front of most Sunday papers – with some running more than one P1 story about him. Following the news that Johnson is divorcing his wife Marina Wheeler, his ‘close friendship’ with a female former Tory aide makes three papers. The Sunday Times reports that a sleaze dossier – linked to No 10 – on weaponising Johnson’s private has been doing the rounds over the past week. However, the author of the document points out that

Saturday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The greatest obstacle to a Brexit deal

The UK and the EU are playing a dangerous game of chicken over the Irish border, I say in The Sun this morning. There has been almost no progress on this issue over the summer and without a deal on it, there can’t be a withdrawal agreement. One of those involved in the negotiations on the British side tells me, the EU ‘believe we will blink first’. But that won’t happen. One Brexit red line that Theresa May is adamant she’ll never cross is her insistence that no British PM could sign the EU’s proposed text on the Irish border, which would see Northern Ireland become part of the customs

Douglas Murray

The Swedish Prime Minister has gambled with his country’s future

The Swedes are going to the polls in one of the most significant bellwether-elections in Europe this year. The international press has been taking an unusual interest in these elections because the Sweden Democrats look set to do fairly well, perhaps coming second if not first. Readers of The Strange Death of Europe will know that I spent some time with members and leaders of that party during research for the book. Nothing that has happened since then (summer 2016) has changed the way I view the party or the political establishment’s attitudes towards it. However, one thing that has happened on the eve of this election could easily have

Friday

Owen Bennett

Welcoming in Tommy Robinson would be the end of Ukip

Is Tommy Robinson a political martyr? Some Ukip supporters think so, and want the former English Defence League leader to be allowed to join their party. A motion set to be debated at Ukip’s conference this month could now decide the issue, with the party’s ruling body debating this weekend whether it should be up to its members to have the final say on whether Robinson should be welcome in Ukip’s ranks. If the ban on Robinson’s membership is lifted, then the smallest fig leaf separating the party from the EDL will have finally been removed. Under Ukip’s latest leader, Gerard Batten, this seems to be the direction in which the

Steerpike Steerpike

Everyone who hates Chequers – a beginner’s guide

In August, this author teased Dalibor Rohac, who wrote in the Washington Post: ‘Theresa May is the world’s most underrated leader.’ Since, Mr S has given it some thought, and sends his apologies. Why? Because Rohac was right – Mrs May is a ‘genius’. In just two months, she has brought unity to Western politics. Everyone hates the Chequers agreement. Since the plan was agreed in July, reams of political figures have spoken out against it. This is Steerpike’s encyclopedia of enmity; a record of those who have denounced May’s proposed negotiating strategy. Michel Barnier The EU’s chief negotiator doesn’t simply hate Mrs May’s plan; he thinks parts of it

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Vince Cable tries to solve the Lib Dems’ existential crisis

Vince Cable’s announcements about shaking up the Liberal Democrats don’t exactly inspire confidence in the party as an energetic force in British politics. Despite pitching themselves squarely as the anti-Brexit party, and despite there being growing talk of a group of voters – and MPs – who feel politically homeless, the Lib Dems are struggling to attract attention or offer a sense of purpose. The Lib Dem leader’s plan to open up the party’s membership to a ‘new class of supporters who pay nothing to sign up to the party’s values’ has sparked a fair bit of criticism from those who think this would leave the Lib Dems vulnerable to