Politics

Omissions can be as instructive as inclusions. I noted a curious example in a column Nick Timothy wrote last month for the Daily Telegraph: ‘Why Dominic Grieve’s push for a “meaningful vote” really would mean stopping Brexit.’ Until he left Downing Street, Mr Timothy was jointly principal adviser to Theresa May. He wrote the following: ‘According to ministers, the choice Parliament will face is to leave on the terms negotiated by the government, or leave with no deal. And they are right: the European treaties assert that the withdrawal process can last no longer than two years…’ This is not the case. Mr Timothy seems to have overlooked a key

What to do about illegal migration from Africa into Europe? The EU’s repatriation programme seems at first like a great idea. Rather than just watching as desperate people risk their lives in the Med, we persuade them to go back home and help them to remake their lives there. The EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa has coughed up £125 million for the scheme and about 25,000 migrants have already taken part, most heading home to west and central Africa. The poster boy of the programme is Smart Akawa. Two years ago, Akawa was flown by the EU back to his native Sierra Leone from a detention centre in Libya.

Before the referendum, I predicted behind closed doors that even if Leave improbably prevailed, Britain’s political establishment would ensure that for all practical purposes the UK stayed in the EU. ‘So Britain wouldn’t be called a “member” anymore,’ I supposed to my husband, ‘but, you know, an “associated affiliate once removed” or something.’ I might as well have said, ‘We’ll join a customs partnership.’ I’ve never been more depressed by being right. The drift seems unmistakable. The white flag is up on the single market for goods, the customs union, the ECJ; Hammond has been equivocal about fishing rights; cracks are appearing in opposition to free movement — and this

So this is what a principled politician looks like. They can be hard to spot these days, but last night, in parliament, we saw four of them in action. Kate Hoey, Frank Field, John Mann and Graham Stringer. Four Labour MPs who, despite knowing they would get flak from both Corbynistas and centrists, despite knowing the Stalinist sections of left-wing Twitter would shriek for their deselection, despite knowing they would be paraded online as ‘Tory stooges’ whom all good Labourites have a duty to despise, nonetheless voted with their consciences and rejected an amendment to Theresa May’s trade bill that could have kept Brexit Britain entangled in a customs union

Thank you Mr Speaker for granting me the opportunity to pay tribute to the men and women of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who have done an outstanding job over the last two years, and I am very proud that we have rallied the world against Russia’s barbaric use of chemical weapons with an unprecedented 28 countries joining together to expel 153 spies in protest at what happened in Salisbury. We have rejuvenated the Commonwealth with a superb summit that saw Zimbabwe back on the path to membership and Angola now wanting to join. And as I leave we are leading global campaigns against illegal wildlife trade and in favour

‘I used to worry that something bad would happen, now I worry that something catastrophic will happen.’ This is how a Cabinet minister sums up the new political crisis facing the Conservative party – and soon the country. Last night one such catastrophe was narrowly avoided. The government managed to defeat the Tory rebel amendment calling for a customs union if frictionless trade was not agreed by January. Had they lost it, Theresa May’s Brexit strategy would be dead in the water and the Whips allege that a confidence vote would have been brought – and an early election loom. The reason May avoided this fate? Labour rebels came to