Politics

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

Thursday

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

En garde!

‘It could be argued that getting out of the office to beat up some leftists is a good way to work up an appetite for lunch,’ one of France’s more cynical millionaires tells me, admiring Alexandre Benalla, 26, a recently fired security aide to President Emmanuel Macron. Benalla had rushed from his office at the Elysée Palace to brawl with members of La France Insoumise, the tattered remnants of the French left, who were demonstrating outside. Tally-ho! Right on. Except that you really are not allowed to do that, especially in the age of camera phones. And the more that comes out about this story, the weirder it becomes. What

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Who wins when everyone is in crisis?

Britain’s three main political parties are in crisis. That isn’t meant to happen. If only by a process of elimination, one of the three UK-wide political parties should be doing well at any given moment. These simultaneous crises are one of the things that is making politics so volatile. Let’s start with the Liberal Democrats. The political circumstances seem almost perfect for them but their failure to even break into the teens in the polls when the two main parties are both in crisis does makes one question whether they can ever return to the levels of popularity they enjoyed before the ill-fated coalition with the Conservatives. What compounds their

Michael Auslin

Making China great again

Most reporting on Jeremy Hunt’s visit to China this week went little further than his slip of the tongue in describing his wife as Japanese rather than Chinese. Preoccupied by that trivial matter and any offence it might have given the new foreign secretary’s hosts (which seemed to be none), commentators missed the somewhat more substantial issue of why China is so keen to oblige Britain’s requests for a trade deal. A ground-breaking free-trade agreement between Britain and the world’s ascendant superpower would be the great boon the UK government so desperately needs, especially after Brussels’ rebuffing of May’s Chequers plan for Britain’s future relationship with the EU and the

Stephen Robinson

Brexit means Boris

A few months before he died in 2007, Bill Deedes asked if I would come to see him at his home in Kent and bring Boris Johnson along with me. I was writing a biography of Bill at the time, and I knew he was miserable because he had broken his hip and could no longer come up to London. Boris jumped at the idea and I remember our lunch as the last time I saw Bill exuberantly happy. Boris knew instinctively what a 93-year-old journalist who was struggling to write his weekly column needed, and filled him in hilariously on the London political and media gossip. The only slight

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Ukip should return – our politics depends on it

‘The return of Ukip’ declared the headline on our cover story last week. The polling boffin Matthew Goodwin to whose analysis this referred was in fact more careful. Professor Goodwin did argue, however, that the potential may be there for a Ukip revival. So it may. But the figures for new recruits that he cites are modest. The doubt he describes as surrounding Nigel Farage’s chances of a comeback is real. Ukip’s present stance under its latest leader Gerard Batten (who has developed links with the campaign for the disgraced and imprisoned former leader of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson) looks crazier by the week. And there’s a world

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The dilemma facing Labour MPs at the next election

John McDonnell’s response to the latest episode in Labour’s anti-Semitism scandal is another reminder of how he grasps the political danger of this to the Corbyn project so much better than Corbyn himself does. The shadow Chancellor appears to get, in a way that Corbyn doesn’t, just how much this issue could damage Labour. One of the striking things about politics right now is that the Corbynite economic agenda has become relatively uncontroversial within the Labour party. At the start of Corbyn’s leadership, the party committing itself to a universal basic income would have caused a major row. But today’s announcement has passed off without controversy. Rather, what is causing

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Jeremy Corbyn dodges questions on anti-Semitism

Labour’s anti-Semitism problem isn’t going away. But it seems Jeremy Corbyn is hoping it will do. When the Labour leader was asked whether he was the man to patch things up between the Jewish community and the party, Corbyn was somewhat lost for words: Reporter: ‘Are relations between the Labour leadership and the British Jewish community broken beyond repair? …Can you fix the relationship, Mr Corbyn?’ Jeremy Corbyn: ‘Good morning, nice to see you. Goodbye…Can you close the window please.’ Mr S. thinks this is hardly the best way for Corbyn to reassure people that he is taking the problem seriously…

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Why Boris Johnson is now the favourite to succeed Theresa May

As Theresa May and her ministers spend their summer holiday trying to convince European leaders of the merits of her widely-panned Chequers Brexit blueprint, one of her departed ministers has cause for celebration. According to the latest ConservativeHome poll of Tory members, since resigning as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has become the favourite among party members to be the next leader. Supported by nearly a third of members, this is an impressive turnaround given that a month ago – when he was still in government – he was backed by only 8 per cent of members.   However, it’s also not that surprising. As I said in the i paper last week, Johnson

Ned Donovan

Why have the Tories abandoned their promise to fight ‘burning injustices’?

This week the Conservative Party quietly abandoned the promises made by Theresa May to the British people on the steps of Downing Street when becoming Prime Minister. As a then-new First Lord of the Treasury, May vowed to her fellow citizens that she would right the ‘burning injustices’ that confronted society’s worst-off and prevented them from meeting their fullest potential. The United Kingdom would, she said, ‘be a country that works for everyone’ and made reference to the disadvantages facing minorities in areas like the justice system. The speech had One Nation Tories like me on the edge of their seats, applauding what sounded like a new direction after years

Tuesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Has Jeremy Corbyn got anything he wants to tell us?

Labour’s anti-Semitism row reached boiling point this week thanks to a leaked recording from a meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee. In it, Corbyn ally Peter Willsman suggests that Jewish ‘Trump fanatics’ are behind ‘duff’ accusations of Labour anti-Semitism and warned that ‘they can falsify social media very easily’. This comes at a particularly bad time for Jeremy Corbyn as Willsman is currently standing for re-election on to the NEC and is one of nine Momentum-backed candidates, known as the #JC9 (see Mr Steerpike’s guide to the candidates here). Moderate Labour MPs – including deputy leader Tom Watson – have been quick to condemn the comments along with a

Douglas Murray

Elin Ersson’s ‘citizen-activism’ comes at a heavy price | 31 July 2018

Last week, a 22-year old Swede called Elin Ersson made headlines around the world for her ‘citizen-activism’. Learning that a failed asylum seeker from Afghanistan was to be deported from her country, she bought a seat on the plane that was due to take him part of the way back home (as far as Turkey). Once she was on board the plane Ersson refused to sit down. Filming the whole thing on her mobile phone (natch) Ms Ersson insisted that to send the failed asylum-seeker to his home country would be consigning him to ‘death’ because Afghanistan is ‘hell’. After about 15 minutes of this Ms Ersson got her way.

Steerpike Steerpike

Arron Banks’ G7 fail

With Theresa May’s Chequers proposal unpopular across the board, there are many politicians and would-be politicians now asking themselves: could I do a better job? For quite a lot of these people, the answer is ‘yes’. However, this afternoon Leave.EU’s Arron Banks offered a reminder that sometimes the basics are harder than they look. The Brexit campaigner took to social media to correct Chuka Umunna for sharing a graph detailing growth in G7 countries. Banks’s complaint? Canada, the USA and Japan aren’t in the G7. The problem? They are. Canada , the USA & Japan aren’t in the G7, dopey https://t.co/7cgHisXAgs — Arron Banks (@Arron_banks) July 31, 2018 Probably for

Steerpike Steerpike

Chris Grayling’s Love Island opportunity

CCHQ’s attempt to latch onto ITV2’s Love Island fanbase by releasing a number of Love Island-themed water bottles with Conservative attack lines hit a bump in the road after it transpired that they had not been given permission to use the reality show trademark. Nevertheless, Mr S suspects that one Cabinet Minister is particularly thrilled to learn that the non-branded water bottles are in abundance in a cupboard at headquarters. Step forward Chris Grayling. Earlier this month PopBitch reported a visitor to the offices of the Secretary of State for Transport noting that all the staff there were trying to beat the heatwave with snazzy new Love Island water bottles. Everyone, that

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: misleading advice for tourists

The latest challenge, to supply snippets of mischievously/sadistically misleading advice for foreign tourists visiting Britain, or for British ones travelling abroad, is one that you always embrace with relish, though one competitor observed that it felt curiously difficult this time round because ‘the interaction between Britain and Abroad isn’t very funny just at the moment’. That may well be true, but your entries still raised a chuckle, and as usual those with a ring of plausibility worked best. There was a fair amount of repetition: popular tips included the desirability of introducing Brexit into conversation at the earliest opportunity, the inadvisability of tipping black cab drivers and the National Gallery’s

Steerpike Steerpike

Momentum’s NEC candidates: a beginner’s guide

Labour’s latest anti-Semitism row has gone from awful to even worse thanks to a recording leaking in which veteran left-winger and NEC member Peter Willsman dismisses some of Corbyn’s critics in the Jewish community as ‘Trump fanatics’, suggests critics could ‘falsify social media’ and questions whether his colleagues had actually seen anti-Semitism in the party. While Labour grandees and young Corbynista pundits have been quick to condemn the comments, a number of Corbyn allies are staying schtum. The problem is that with fresh elections underway as of last week to decide who will be elevated to Labour’s governing body, the National Executive Committee (NEC), this comes at a bad time for the

Monday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Why won’t the left speak up for Sarah Champion?

Where’s the concern for Labour MP Sarah Champion? Where are the leftists demanding that this female MP stop being harassed merely for expressing her views? Where are the tweets drawing attention to Ms Champion’s plight — the fact that she now needs an actual security team because people who hate her political views want to physically harm her? In this post-Jo Cox era, I thought we were all meant to have the backs of elected politicians who are under threat from extremists. And yet when it comes to Champion — just such an elected politician — people seem to be looking the other way. It isn’t hard to work out

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Are Labour moderates walking into a trap over the latest deselection threats?

The news that Labour Brexiteers Kate Hoey and Frank Field are both facing deselection threats for rebelling on a crunch Brexit vote has been met with notable silence from many Labour moderates. After the pair voted with the Tories on a crucial customs amendment which the government won by just five votes, they have both lost ‘confidence’ votes in their local parties. The no-confidence vote does not mean any imminent action but constituency party members could now seek a trigger ballot with the potential to deselect the sitting MP. Hoey and Field’s sin isn’t just that they broke with official Labour Brexit policy – there are plenty of Corbynistas who can

Rupert Darwall

How Brexiteers can still save Brexit | 30 July 2018

Brexit hangs by a thread. The Chequers Plan has already failed. Public hostility and its one-sided nature mean that it cannot provide a durable basis for the UK’s future relationship with the EU.  Only eighteen months ago, the Prime Minister was saying that Britain could not possibly stay in the EU Single Market. It would mean “not leaving the EU at all.” Yet this is precisely what the Chequers Plan does, with its acknowledgment that the Single Market is built on a balance of rights and obligations and its proposal for a new framework that “holds rights and obligations in a fair and different balance.” Fair and different is not

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Jeremy Hunt’s Chinese wife gaffe

Jeremy Hunt might have some explaining to do when he gets home from his trip to China. The Foreign Secretary has been in Beijing drumming up trade for Britain, but during discussions with his Chinese counterparts he accidentally referred to his Chinese wife as Japanese: ‘Erm, my wife is Japanese. My wife is Chinese, sorry. That is a terrible mistake to make’ Oh dear…

Steerpike Steerpike

Project Fear latest: Brexit means… super-gonorrhoea

Oh dear. With Tory MPs and Opposition MPs alike united in their dislike of Theresa May’s Chequers proposals, talk of a no deal Brexit is rife. Only this time around no-one seems able to agree on where Project Fear stops and Kamikaze begins. In today’s Telegraph, a Brexiteer MP accuses May of being the most Kamikaze of all thanks to her new penchant for releasing no deal preparation notices. Far from being the stuff the UK should show to Brussels to prove they are ready, they say, talk of plans to stockpile food and bring in the army to deliver it are aimed at scaring Brits into accepting her compromise.