Politics Archives

Thursday

6 Dec 2018

Theresa May’s meetings with her MPs are making things worse

Theresa May is continuing her efforts today to persuade Tory MPs to back her Brexit deal. It is clear that she is not going to get Commons approval for that deal on Tuesday, and is too late to drop it beforehand without another vote. What’s unclear is whether the Prime Minister is actually making the situation any better. The tally of Tory MPs who have declared in public that they will vote against the deal isn’t falling, but rising, even as backbenchers are summoned into meetings in Number 10 and the Prime Minister appears in the Commons dining rooms to try to sweet talk her party. A recurring theme among

Katy Balls

What happens next?

Parliament is in deadlock over Brexit. So what can we expect in the coming days and weeks after the vote? These are the scenarios currently being war-gamed. May’s deal passes A political shock: Theresa May squeaks over the line after convincing Brexiteers that it was her deal or no Brexit — and Remainers that it was her deal or a no-deal Brexit. The DUP then rains on May’s parade. Seething over the backstop, it declares that the confidence and supply agreement is over for good. This scenario could involve delaying the initial vote in the hope this gives MPs time to come around. It passes on a second vote Theresa

James Forsyth

Brexit’s crunch point

Unless Theresa May delays the vote, 11 December 2018 might be about to become one of the most important in recent British history; more important even than 23 June 2016. If MPs vote down Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, as nearly all ministers expect them to, they will set Britain on course for either the softest possible Brexit or a second referendum. In the process, they may well split the Tory party. Theresa May’s strategy has been to play chicken with Parliament. Her team saw virtue in intransigence and calculated that at the last moment MPs would get out of her way. They thought that fear of no deal would bring

Martin Vander Weyer

Who’s really to blame for the Crossrail fiasco?

There’s been a strong sense of pre-Christmas turkeys coming home to roost in this week’s news, as stories I’ve written about for months or years have reached, if not a denouement, then at least a new twist in the plot. Saddest of these is Crossrail, London’s east-west mass–transit system that was originally scheduled for its royal opening next week: now we hear it needs ‘hundreds of millions’ more of public money if it is to meet its delayed completion a year hence, though even that date no longer looks a safe bet. Its chairman Sir Terry Morgan has announced that he’s waiting to be sacked, both from Crossrail and from

Rod Liddle

Lord save us from Le Carré

Thank the blessed Lord it’s over. Not Brexit, or Theresa May’s flailing and spastic governance. I’m talking about John le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl, which has been serialised on the BBC on a Sunday evening, just when people want to watch something interesting. I watched it with the missus, and by episode two decided I would much rather spend my Sunday evenings assaulting my own head with a claw hammer. But we persisted with this expensively shot garbage because we are a married couple and therefore think it right and proper to engage in joint activities and stick with them regardless of how distressing and unpleasant they may be

Wednesday

5 Dec 2018

Daniel DePetris

Mike Pompeo’s unwelcome warning to Brussels’ bureaucrats

The US secretary of state Mike Pompeo strutted into Brussels yesterday like a man on a mission. His task was almost impossible from the start: to convince America’s friends and allies in Europe that the United States under Donald Trump is still the leader of the liberal world order European politicians care so deeply about. It’s difficult to believe Pompeo convinced anyone. America’s top diplomat could have done what many of his predecessors have chosen to do: tell the European foreign policy community to relax and take a deep breath, America won’t be throwing you to the wolves. Instead, Pompeo was far more confrontational, channeling the fire and brimstone of his

Andrew Willshire

Rory Stewart is right: the shock of a no-deal Brexit would be fatal for the Tories

As a white, straight male, it’s not often that I get to feel in a minority but at the Spectator Brexit debate – as a Leave voter in favour of Theresa May’s deal – it was apparent that I’m an endangered species on a par with the white rhino. But I also found that I have an eloquent champion: Rory Stewart, the prisons minister, who gave the best case that I have heard for the deal He was on stage with Dominic Raab, on the opposite end of the pragmatism spectrum. Raab, in effect, argued for a no-deal Brexit, while Stewart mounted a most robust defence of the May deal,

Bernard Connolly

May’s bid to satisfy everyone on Brexit has pleased no one

In Parliament yesterday, Theresa May repeated Philip Hammond’s fallacious argument that because the Brexit referendum result was 52:48, the form of Brexit should be a compromise between leaving the EU and remaining in it. This argument completely distorts the notion of democracy. Firstly, no such argument was ever deployed when it was a question of accepting the Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon treaties. Secondly, the referendum was not subject to any threshold level of support for one position or the other. And David Cameron and George Osborne stated very explicitly that a victory for “Leave” – even by a single vote – would mean leaving the Single Market and the

Steerpike

Top ten horrors from the Brexit ‘legal advice’

Despite numerous attempts by the government to keep it hidden, the Attorney General’s legal advice has finally been published. The move came after opposition MPs – to whom Mr S is very grateful – found ministers in contempt of Parliament for with-holding the information. Remember our 40 horrors of the deal? Well, Geoffrey Cox’s hotly-anticipated legal advice has some nasty surprises of its own. As ever, Steerpike has compiled the top horrors from the latest document: 1. This is not the full legal advice on the May’s deal. It is a very selective piece of advice solely on the Protocol, art. 184 and 5. So no other issues are considered.

Nick Cohen

The betrayal of the Brexit bunch

It is now standard on the right to say that the establishment is sabotaging Brexit. I could pick one of half a dozen writers for this magazine, who wallow in the language of victimhood as luxuriantly as any of the alleged snowflakes they so unselfconsciously denounce. The inevitable failure to transfer the impossible demands of the Brexit campaign into the politics of the possible is producing vicious stab-in-the-back myths. Nowhere more so than from the lips of the Conservative MP Maria Caulfield who declared yesterday: Note how artfully she plays the innocent who came to Westminster with high ideals, like a modern Candide, only to see them crushed by the

Charles Moore

Should we listen to David Attenborough’s climate change warning?

‘Civilisation faces collapse, Attenborough warns UN.’ That was the Times headline on Tuesday about the great broadcaster’s speech at the latest climate change conference in Poland. In theory, Sir David is always worth hearing. Nevertheless, his solemn warning was made less effective by the decision to print it at the bottom of page 17. I cannot help feeling that this adverse news judgment was entirely correct. This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Spectator Notes, which appears in this week’s magazine, out tomorrow

Ross Clark

Are we heading for a recession? If so, don’t just blame Brexit

So will those Remainers seemingly hoping for a Brexit-related recession get what they want after all? This morning Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for the service sector certainly points in that direction. The index, which is really just a questionnaire to businesses but which can give advance warning of swings in economic growth, fell to 50.4 in November, down from 52.2 in October and 54 in September. Anything above 50 denotes growth – so it doesn’t indicate we are yet in recession – but it suggests a steep plunge in activity and confidence which could well take us there. It would be foolish to deny any link with the Brexit crisis.

The Spectator

Full text: The Government’s Brexit legal advice

The Government has published its Brexit legal advice, a day after it was found in contempt of Parliament for refusing to do so. Here’s the full text: Legal Effect of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland Introduction This note sets out my advice on the question I have been asked as follows: What is the legal effect of the UK agreeing to the Protocol to the Withdrawal Agreement on Ireland and Northern Ireland in particular its effect in conjunction with Articles 5 and 184 of the main Withdrawal Agreement? I note that the Withdrawal Agreement, of which the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland (Protocol) forms part, is yet to be finalised. My

Katy Balls

What did May mean to say with her Commons speech?

After Theresa May’s government made history on Tuesday with three successive Commons defeats – including the first contempt of Parliament defeat since the 1970s – ministers were given no respite with a Brexit debate that ran on until 1am. The Prime Minister’s address to start that session was overshadowed somewhat by the various Commons clashes along with the news of Dominic Grieve’s Brexit amendment passing (see Isabel for what it means for the government’s plans here). But the statement is important to note as it appeared to mark a change in tone. May adopted a frank manner – and told MPs of the difficulties and sacrifices she had made to get

Stephen Daisley

Nigel Farage finally reaches his ‘breaking point’ with Ukip

‘Obsessed with Islam and Tommy Robinson.’ This is how Nigel Farage describes a cohort of Ukip activists he encountered at the party’s Birmingham conference earlier this year. Gerard Batten, the tenth leader of Ukip, has openly courted such elements in his calculated lurch to the farther-right. He has recruited as an adviser Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson or St Tommy of the Uncollapsed Trials, the free speech martyr vilified by the establishment purely because he keeps imperilling court proceedings against Pakistani grooming gangs. Batten has called Islam a ‘death cult’ in which ‘they believe in propagating their religion by killing other people and martyring themselves and going and

Tuesday

4 Dec 2018

Charles Day

The small print of today’s Article 50 opinion reveals yet another ECJ power grab

The European Court of Justice is back in the headlines this morning. Its Advocate General, Manuel Campos Sanchez-Bordona, has declared that the UK might be able to cancel Brexit by revoking Article 50 unilaterally. So is that it settled? Not at all: nothing, with the ECJ, is ever that simple. In fact, the whole episode is a good chance to look at the ECJ and the way it works – and then ask if this is the kind of supreme court that Britain really wants to stay under. Take what happened this morning. We learn via a three-page press release what Sanchez-Bordona thinks about Article 50. An hour after that

Isabel Hardman

Is Parliament taking back control of Brexit? | 4 December 2018

One of the promises of Brexit campaigners, famously, was that parliament will ‘take back control’ of laws that affect Britain. Since the referendum result, it has seemed rather more that the government is taking back control, rather than MPs, with the executive (quite naturally) resisting any opportunity for Parliament to have a say in, well, any part of the Brexit deal. This evening, though, MPs handed the government its third defeat of the day on an amendment from former attorney general Dominic Grieve which would give the Commons a say on what happens if (or more probably when) Theresa May’s deal is defeated next week. The plan, which passed 321

The Spectator

Revealed: the full list of Tory rebels who voted against the Government

The Government has been defeated three times in key votes in Parliament this afternoon. Its an ominous sign for Theresa May ahead of the vote on her Brexit plan a week today. Here is the full list of Tory MPs who went against the Government: Grieve amendment: This hands more power to MPs in the event that May’s Brexit plan gets voted down, by effectively allowing them to have a say on what the PM’s Plan B should be. These Tory MPs rebelled: Heidi Allen Guto Bebb Richard Benyon Nick Boles Kenneth Clarke Jonathan Djanogly Michael Fallon George Freeman Richard Graham Damian Green Justine Greening Dominic Grieve Oliver Heald Jo Johnson Phillip Lee Jeremy Lefroy Oliver Letwin Nicky Morgan Bob Neill Antoinette Sandbach Nicholas Soames Anna Soubry John Stevenson Derek Thomas

Steerpike

Nigel Farage quits Ukip

Nigel Farage has quit Ukip. The three-time leader of the party said he was walking away in protest at its courting of Tommy Robinson under Gerard Batten. Farage announced his departure in an article for the Telegraph. He said: ‘With a heavy heart, and after all my years of devotion to the party, I am leaving Ukip today. There is a huge space for a Brexit party in British politics, but it won’t be filled by UKIP.’ It’s been said many times before but Mr S thinks this really could be the end of Ukip…

Katy Balls

What the latest government defeat means for May’s premiership

After numerous last ditch efforts to dig themselves out of this hole, the government has found itself in contempt of Parliament over its refusal to publish the Attorney General’s legal advice in full. The DUP joined forces with Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP to vote for a motion which finds ministers in contempt over the government’s refusal to share the legal advice in full – at 311 to 293. The government has now said it will publish the legal verdict (expect some horrors). If they fail to comply, then a minister could face suspension . However, the part of this whole debacle that should worry No.10 the most