Politics Archives

Thursday

29 Nov 2018

The Corbyn effect

What’s wrong with UK financial markets? The global economy is recovering, but British stocks and shares are not keeping pace. The pound has failed to recover from the slide it experienced in the wake of the EU referendum. This is frequently blamed on investors being spooked by Brexit, even more so by the possibility of a no deal. But has anyone actually asked the markets what is spooking them? Look closer and it becomes clear that while Brexit is a problem for some investors, most are much more worried about a far bigger risk, even if they rarely speak about it in public. It is the possibility of a Corbyn

Wednesday

28 Nov 2018

Steerpike

Til Brexit (and a government job) do us part

Earlier this month Mr Steerpike noted that here might be some domestic troubles in one Westminster household, after MP Jack Lopestri came out in support of May’s Brexit deal – unlike Andrea Jenkyns, his Brexiteer wife. Now it appears that Number 10 were paying attention too: today they announced that Lopestri has joined the government, as PPS to the new Brexit secretary, Stephen Barclay. But while Jenkyns took to social media to say how pleased she was that her husband was promoted, she also suggested that his talents might not be the only reason he was given the job. In fact, it might even be a ploy by the Conservative

Steerpike

Gary Lineker’s Brexit muddle

When Gary Lineker isn’t talking about football there is another subject that he likes to bang on about: Brexit. Lineker has backed the ‘People’s Vote’ campaign and is calling for a second referendum. As the Chancellor Philip Hammond unveiled his Brexit forecasts this morning, Lineker was spurred into action on Twitter: The only problem? That is the message the Treasury was selling 2.5 years ago. Back in May 2016, the chancellor’s predecessor George Osborne warned that Brexit would tip Britain into a year-long recession and cause a ‘profound’ economic shock. We were also told by David Cameron that a vote to Leave would be the ‘self-destruct option’. Of course in

Lloyd Evans

Stop the press: Corbyn shows some wit at PMQs

As their time draws near, doomed leaders like to have a final go on the train-set. Mrs May entered this state of self-absorbed hyperactivity about a week ago when she started to push and yank at all the levers of power in Downing Street. Honours were handed out. Jets were commissioned to zoom her between various provincial capitals. TV stations were ordered to suspend their Sunday schedules and to prepare for a stage-managed debate starring Mrs May. Her hope is to mobilise support for the chit of paper she recently received from Brussels in return for £39bn. Never was chit more dearly purchased. At PMQs we got a foretaste of

Steerpike

Diane Abbott takes a pop at police

If Jeremy Corbyn makes it to No.10, then Diane Abbott will be Home Secretary. In that role, Abbott will be ultimately responsible for the police. But the Labour MP isn’t doing much to win over the affection of the thin blue line. In a tweet yesterday, Abbott had a pop at police officers for knocking suspects off mopeds. Her criticism has unsurprisingly not gone down well with officers: Oh dear…

Alex Massie

The moment Theresa May sealed our Brexit fate | 28 November 2018

Theresa May is in Scotland today which is one way of ascertaining the depth of the hole in which she finds herself. One day, prime ministerial visits to Scotland – or, indeed, to Northern Ireland or Wales – will cease to be considered newsworthy events in their own right. Until such time as they are not rarities, however, they are doomed to be seen as gestures. A whistle-stop tour of the United Kingdom’s northern and western extremities is not enough, no matter how much the Prime Minister might enjoy a day or two away from the Westminster snake-pit. This visit, like so many others, will be an occasion for saying

Ross Clark

Philip Hammond has exposed the problem with the Treasury’s Brexit forecast

It is the decimal point which really gets me. If we have a ‘no deal’ Brexit, according to Treasury forecasters, the economy will be 7.6 per cent lower in 15 years’ time than it would be if we didn’t leave the EU. What, not 7.7 per cent? It is an age-old trick: express your guesswork with a decimal point or two on the end and hope that it sounds a bit more convincing, as if a bit more science has gone into it. But sorry, the Treasury should not be fooling anyone this time. It is politically interesting that Philip Hammond told the Today programme this morning that he thinks

Charles Moore

The UK must avoid the backstop trap

Theresa May, William Hague and others say that the EU will not want to trap Britain in the backstop because it is not in its interest. It will want to move to a free-trade agreement for its own benefit. If that is so, why is the backstop the thing above all others upon which the EU insists? One reason why Brexiteers have to oppose the backstop absolutely is that it is yet another manifestation of Britain’s delusion in every European negotiation over nearly 50 years, which is that we should grab ‘practical’ advantages and concede ‘windy’ principles. This sounds good, but it invariably means that we are trapped later. The principles acquire

Katy Balls

Is the May-Corbyn television debate pointless?

Theresa May has two weeks to sell her deal to MPs ahead of the meaningful vote on Tuesday 11 December. The fact that Philip Hammond used an interview this morning meant for selling the deal to state that at present there was no consensus in favour of it tells you everything you need to know about how that is going. There are gloomy estimates that the government could lose the vote by as much as 200 – that seems steep but a defeat around the 100 mark is beginning to seem likely. So, how does No.10 plan to turn things around? There’s a special Brexit grid which will see a

Nick Cohen

The quack doctors of Brexit ignore the cure to Britain’s strife

The British are like patients with an incurable illness. Thinking and worrying can do no good, but those who understand Britain’s sickness can think of nothing else. Rationally, we understand there is nothing we can do about Brexit until and unless the balance of forces shifts in Westminster. No one knows what will happen next. No one can say when the European question will be settled, and we will be free to to get on with our lives as best we can. All options have been discussed to the point of exhaustion and beyond. But like patients who cannot shut their illness from their minds, we can’t help ourselves. We

Tuesday

27 Nov 2018

Robert Peston

Could Jeremy Corbyn be about to back a second referendum?

We’ve all been focussing on the crisis that would ensue if – as expected – the PM loses the meaningful vote on her Brexit deal ‪on 11 December‬. But just for a moment think about the implications if she wins, because they too would be momentous. To state the obvious, we’d be out of the EU on terms that are semi-blind – we wouldn’t know our long-term destination. But we would be out. And she, the PM, would rein supreme. She would have crushed her opponents, who would have lost all hope of political advancement or favour. And having delivered Brexit against the odds, she could be pretty confident in

Matt Kilcoyne

Remaining in the EU would come at a big price for Britain | 27 November 2018

We’re familiar with the warnings about the cost of Brexit. The ‘People’s Vote’ campaign released an estimate yesterday suggesting that Theresa May’s deal will leave the UK £100bn worse off a year. Tomorrow, the Treasury will unveil its forecasts of the economic impact of Brexit. But what about the price of staying put in the EU? Whatever those clamouring for a ‘People’s Vote’ might claim, no Brexit does have a cost. Firstly, the price in terms of political capital will be significant. What does going back on the referendum result say to the 17.4million voters who voted Leave? What about the damage done to trust in our institutions and our politicians? Or to

Monday

26 Nov 2018

Freddy Gray

Why Donald Trump thinks the Brexit deal is no good for US-UK trade

Donald Trump has always been consistent on Brexit. He admired the spirit of the vote, a freedom-loving people defying their elites, as his deplorables would go on to do. He likes Britain. He dislikes the EU, which he has always regarded as a sort of protection racket for German manufacturing and an institution that gets in the way of his golf course development. Ever since Trump’s inauguration, he has made it clear that America is ready to give Britain the ‘beautiful’ free trade deal that so excites Brexiteers. But he and his advisers have been consistently disappointed by May’s insistence that she must stick by E.U. terms and regulations at

James Forsyth

The mountain Theresa May has to climb to get her deal through

If Theresa May needed any reminder of what a mountain she has to climb to get her Brexit deal through, she got it in the House of Commons this afternoon. Any hope that getting the deal agreed with the EU 27 might give her momentum was dashed as MP after MP stood up to criticise the agreement. Not one MP supported it in the first hour of the session. In part, the wall of hostility came from the Speaker calling those known to be hostile to the deal. But what should most worry May was how critical Michael Fallon, the former defence secretary, was of her deal. If party loyalists,

Robert Peston

Why the Treasury’s Brexit forecasts will be almost irrelevant

The publication by the Treasury of its forecasts of the economic impact of Theresa May’s Brexit deal, versus no-deal and staying in the EU, has been keenly awaited. But it turns out that what we will read, probably on Wednesday, will be almost irrelevant. Because what the Treasury has modelled is not the deal actually struck on Sunday by Theresa May, but her Chequers plan. And, as you will be keenly aware, the rest of the EU has rejected her Chequers combination of the UK staying in the single market for goods and the dual-tariff customs territory the Facilitated Customs Arrangement. In other words, we will be asked by the

Isabel Hardman

How Jeremy Corbyn could cause yet another Labour split on Brexit

Jeremy Corbyn has been clear for a while that Labour will vote against Theresa May’s Brexit deal in the Commons. But it’s worth keeping an eye on the reaction in his party to the development of a second line in the Labour position, which is that the party has a better plan for Brexit. Today the Labour leader urged the Prime Minister to ‘prepare a Plan B’, telling the Commons that ‘there is a sensible deal that could win the support of this House based on a comprehensive customs union and strong single market deal that protects rights at work and environmental safeguards’. This is of course based on the

Steerpike

Watch: Nigel Dodds’s fury at May

Theresa May has managed to anger quite a few MPs in recent weeks with her withdrawal agreement, but none more so than the DUP, who are livid that it creates regulatory barriers between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. And judging by the reaction of one DUP MP in the chamber today, it doesn’t look to Mr S like the two parties are going to resolve their differences any time soon. When the DUP’s Nigel Dodds asked Theresa May which parts of the backstop (in the words of the Chancellor) would be bad for the union and bad for the economy, he was not impressed that the Prime Minister thought he

Katy Balls

Watch: Theresa May apologises for queue-jumping comment

When Theresa May stood up at the CBI conference earlier this month and declared that under the new Brexit immigration system, EU nationals would no longer be able to ‘jump the queue’, she met a hostile reaction. The rhetoric led to fellow leaders, MPs and voters going on the offensive over the comments. Today Theresa May took the opportunity to apologise for that comment. Asked in the Chamber by the SNP’s Philippa Whitford whether she wished to apologise for insulting EU nationals like Whitford’s husband, a German national and a doctor, who have contributed to society and made a home here, May said she should not have used that phrase: ‘I

Isabel Hardman

My deal or chaos: May’s message to MPs as she faces the Commons

It only took a few lines of Theresa May’s statement to the House of Commons on her Brexit deal before MPs started making dissenting noises all around her. The Prime Minister started by listing the ways in which the deal ‘takes back control’ for the British people, telling MPs that this included control of Britain’s borders, ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, an end to ‘vast annual payments we send to Brussels’, protecting jobs through a new Free Trade Area, protecting the country’s security and maintaining ‘the integrity of our United Kingdom, meeting our commitments in Northern Ireland and delivering for the whole UK family, including our

Theresa May

Full text: Theresa May defends her Brexit deal in the Commons

At yesterday’s Special European Council in Brussels, I reached a deal with the leaders of the other 27 EU Member States on a Withdrawal Agreement that will ensure our smooth and orderly departure on 29th March next year; and, tied to this Agreement, a Political Declaration on an ambitious future partnership that is in our national interest. Mr Speaker, this is the right deal for Britain because it delivers on the democratic decision of the British people. It takes back control of our borders. It ends the free movement of people in full once and for all, allowing the government to introduce a new skills-based immigration system. It takes back