Politics

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

Ross Clark

What happened to the Brexit exodus of foreign students?

Brexit will, of course, lead to a crash in the number of foreign students coming to racist, xenophobic Britain. We know this because the Guardian keeps telling us so. To quote one headline in the paper from April: “Vice-chancellors urge action to stop predicted 60 per cent fall in EU students”. The story went to quote Prof Julia Black, pro vice-chancellor for research at the LSE, who said: “It is hard to model how many students would pay fees 50 per cent higher when they could be taught in English in other countries for less or for free. We know from research studies that these European students just want to

Isabel Hardman

Can Sajid Javid really change immigration policy?

When Sajid Javid became Home Secretary, he did so on the basis that he would be able to undo some of the political damage done by the ‘hostile environment policy’. Last night, he rather quietly announced that a key element of this policy would be paused, something Labour’s David Lammy immediately seized upon, hauling Javid’s junior Caroline Nokes to the Commons for an urgent question. Noakes insisted that this pause was ‘temporary’, adding that she would not give consent to the data sharing between government departments and other organisations until she was confident ‘that we will not be impacting on further members of the Windrush generation’. Lammy was largely unhappy

Tom Goodenough

The Spectator Podcast: Revolution!

Is Brexit going in circles? With the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson – and widespread unhappiness at the Prime Minister’s Chequers plan – it is hard to pretend that things are going well. But is the drama only just getting started? In this week’s cover piece, James Forsyth says that a no-deal Brexit, or calling the whole thing off altogether, are now distinct possibilities. On the podcast, James says that this week’s events show that it is not only the Brexit ultras who could cause the PM trouble; ‘this rebellion goes far deeper into the Conservative party,’ he argues. Paul Goodman, editor of ConservativeHome and John Springford, deputy

Steerpike

Martin Selmayr takes a pop at English football fans

There is no love lost between the so-called ‘monster of Brussels’ Martin Selmayr and the British government, but it is English football fans that Selmayr has chosen to take a dig at in his latest tweet. Just moments after England were knocked out of the World Cup last night, Selmayr – who previously served as Juncker’s chief of staff – tweeted this: Selmayr’s jibe didn’t just go down badly with Brexiteers, though, with even Tim Farron joining in the backlash against the Brussels bureaucrat: Still, Mr S thinks that while football might not be coming home this year, England at least did much better than Selmayr’s native Germany – who

Martin Vander Weyer

Has UK productivity really seen a revival?

Bank of England economists Will Holman and Tim Pike claim to have spotted a productivity revival, on the basis of a ‘recent pivot towards business investment to overcome greater labour scarcity’ aided by ‘major advances in technology’. But the Office for National Statistics reports that productivity actually fell by 0.4 per cent in the first quarter, while most experts agree that UK productivity is so far below where it might have been if pre-2008 trends had continued that the gap may never be made up. And both Carolyn Fairbairn of the CBI and Adam Marshall of the British Chambers of Commerce have recently lamented the sluggishness of growth in business

James Forsyth

Brexit in a spin

‘The numbers just don’t stack up,’ one cabinet minister wearily declared to me on Monday night. This is, perhaps, the single most important fact in British politics today: Theresa May does not currently have the votes to pass her Brexit plan even if she could get the European Union to accept it. Boris Johnson and David Davis’s resignations mean that it won’t just be Jacob Rees-Mogg and a dozen ultras voting against Theresa May’s Brexit deal, but a far larger group. Further proof of this came on Tuesday, when two of the party’s vice-chairs — Ben Bradley and Maria Caulfield — resigned so that they could oppose the deal. Tellingly,

Rod Liddle

This is Brexit in name only to keep the plebs happy

My wife has decided she likes Dominic Raab, the latest poor sap to be despatched from a hamstrung, spasticated government to negotiate our exit from the European Union before a plethora of sniggering pygmies from the Low Countries. I think it’s the sound of his surname, those consecutive vowels, because I’ve noticed she also likes aardvarks and once expressed a wish to visit Aachen. I can’t think of many other reasons to like the chap. He surely knows what we all know, Leavers and Remainers alike — that the route our Prime Minister dreamed up one night while out of her box on skag, presumably, is not Brexit at all

James Delingpole

Ukip’s on the verge of a spectacular comeback – all thanks to May

Paul Joseph Watson, Count Dankula and Sargon of Akkad have joined Ukip. Let that sink in. This is an in-joke which you’ll only appreciate if you’ve pretty much given up on the mainstream media and you prefer to fight all your culture wars battles online. Because, unusually, I happen to straddle both worlds — it’s an age and job thing — allow me to explain who these people are and why their support of Ukip suggests it might be on the verge of a major comeback. Watson is a brilliant polemicist (his day job is to work for Alex Jones, the crazy host of America’s InfoWars) whose funny, angry, disgusted

Why Spain could be the populists’ next battleground

When Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Salvini, refused to let the rescue ship Aquarius – which was carrying 629 men, women, and children – land, the European Union was presented with yet another migration emergency. The vessel was stranded for days in the Mediterranean looking for a place to dock, with an EU-wide solution nowhere to be found. Eventually, Spain’s newly-installed socialist government stepped up and allowed the boat to dock. Madrid’s act of statesmanship was a win for everybody: it allowed Salvini to claim that his tough immigrant policy was working; Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, could burnish his credentials as a humanitarian; and it solved a problem for the EU,

Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May dodges Donald Trump’s handshake

When Theresa May first met Donald Trump, she was pictured strolling arm-in-arm with the president through the grounds of the White House. But a lot has happened in the 18 months since that meeting, and now it seems May doesn’t even want to touch the Donald’s hand. When Trump greeted the Prime Minister at the Nato summit in Brussels, May refused to shake the president’s hand. Perhaps Trump’s overtures to Boris Johnson haven’t gone down well…

Steerpike

Breaking: John Cleese will leave England

Back in May, John Cleese promised to leave England if MPs voting not to go ahead with Leveson 2. At the time Mr S was left asking: is he a man of his word? Happily, Steerpike can confirm that he is. Speaking on Newsnight, Cleese told Emily Maitlis that he had decided to leave the country as a result of that vote. And where will he be going? As of the autumn, Cleese will be sunning himself on the island of Nevis – which has a population of just 11,000 – in the Caribbean. “I don’t like it, I don’t trust it.” John Cleese on why he’s decided to leave the

Katy Balls

Can Theresa May count?

It’s day four of the Brexiteer rebellion and Theresa May appears to have shored up her position… for now. The eurosceptics who take the greatest issue with her Chequers blue print – thought to be around 70 Tory MPs – don’t think they have the numbers as of yet to win a no confidence and, they say, this isn’t even their preferred option. What they want is for the Prime Minister to change course – but No 10 insist that they won’t budge. Unless she does, Guerrilla tactics have been threatened – so get ready for more resignations. However, as I say in today’s i paper, the biggest problem from

Freddy Gray

Donald Trump goes to war with Nato

Don’t say you weren’t warned. Ahead of the Nato summit in Brussels today, Donald Trump had spent the last two days tweeting about the iniquity of Nato and the trade deficits between the EU and his country. He had singled out Germany for not contributing enough to Nato’s defence budget, and three times mentioned a $151bn trade deficit figure with Europe. Sure enough, at this morning’s opening breakfast, he came out all rhetorical guns blazing, and then posted a clip of himself with all rhetorical guns blazing on Twitter. So – while Britain debates whether it is morally right to have a giant baby Trump blimp flying over his head

Steerpike

Tory MPs scrap over World Cup semi-final

Just this weekend, the Tories were joining others in rounding on Labour for trying to politicise the World Cup – with a call for a bank holiday. But with the Conservative party now in the midst of blue-on-blue warfare over Theresa May’s Brexit position, that memo appears to have gone out of the window. Ahead of England’s World Cup semi final match against Croatia on Wednesday, Henry Smith – the Conservative MP – took to Twitter to complain of an invite he had received from Chief Whip Julian Smith on behalf of No 10. The problem? He had been invited to watch the England match at Downing Street – but

Katy Balls

Why the latest Brexit resignations will alarm No 10

Theresa May had nearly got to the end of the working day with no resignations. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Two Tory vice-chairs – Ben Bradley and Maria Caulfield – have handed in their respective resignations over the Prime Minister’s Chequers proposals. What will worry No 10 is not that they now need to find a Tory vice-chair for young people and another for women – that will be possible and they may well come with fewer issues than these two. Instead, what will ring alarm bells is that neither can be described as an ardent Brexiteer. Bradley was a Remain-er in the EU referendum but represents a Leave seat.

Nick Cohen

Boris is gone. What now for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe?

What’s one woman’s life worth as the great battles about Brexit rage? Nothing at all, apparently, as Boris Johnson’s indifference towards the fate of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe shows. The British mother is, you will recall, being held in an Iranian prison on trumped up spying charges. She says she was just visiting Iran, and there is no reason to disbelieve her. Johnson took it upon himself to risk provoking the country’s religious dictatorship into extending her sentence when he told a parliamentary committee that she had been in Iran to train journalists. He later apologised in the Commons, retracting ‘any suggestion she was there in a professional capacity’. But the damage was

Freddy Gray

Poor Theresa May. In Trump-speak, ‘very good relationship’ means he can’t stand you

Uh oh – Poor Theresa.  You know that when Donald Trump, the most powerful man in the world, tells the media that you and he have a ‘very good relationship’, it means he doesn’t like you at all. It’s what he said about Theresa May this morning, just before he left for Europe. It’s also what he says about Justin Trudeau (‘good relationship’), Angela Merkel (‘really great relationship’),  Mitch McConnell (‘relationship is very good’) and even Barack Obama (‘very good relationship’). In fact, in Trump-speak, ‘very good relationship’ means ‘I can’t stand him/her.’ Boris Johnson is a different matter. ‘Boris Johnson is a friend of mine,’ said the President this morning.