Politics

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

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Running a bank’s tough. That’s no reason to start handing capital back

A mixed bag of annual results from the big banks. RBS, still 73 per cent owned by the taxpayer, recorded a small profit for the first time since 2008 but took flak for a newly released report on the outrageous behaviour of its Global Restructuring Group, the team that mistreated struggling business customers in the post-crash phase. No wonder chief executive Ross McEwan looked tired, irritable and homesick for New Zealand. Lloyds, having served its time in the sin bin alongside RBS, is now by contrast the sector’s comeback star, with profits up 24 per cent to £5.3 billon (despite another hefty charge for PPI mis-selling) and promises of more

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Major hypocrisy

With the Irish border problem rearing its head once again this week, Sir John Major has popped up with an intervention Theresa May could probably have done without. In a speech today, the former prime minister urged May to keep Britain in ‘a’ customs union for the sake of the peace process. He went on to say MPs should be given a free vote on whether to accept or reject the final Brexit deal and that this should include the option to decide on a second referendum. However, Mr S can’t help but sense a whiff of major hypocrisy in the air. Firstly, Major did not practise what he is

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: MPs take the Barnier Plan seriously

The thoughts of M Barnier get barnier and barnier. Today’s crazy idea from the EU’s chief negotiator was a ‘common regulatory area’ on the island of Ireland. Perhaps he didn’t understand what he was proposing: the break-up of the UK, with Ulster remaining within the EU. This would turn the Six Counties into Brussels’s first colony. As it happens, Britain began its colonial adventures in Ireland so our politicians know a thing or two about annexing hostile territory over there. At PMQs they took M Barnier’s plan for direct rule from Brussels very seriously. Four questioners sought reassurance from the Prime Minister. Answering David Simpson, Mrs May pointed to the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Michel Barnier’s encouraging comment

Theresa May’s response to today’s Brexit developments has been revealing. At PMQs, she called staying in a customs union with the EU a ‘betrayal’ of the referendum result, a definite ramping up of her rhetoric, and said that ‘no UK prime minister could ever agree to what the EU’s draft legal text proposes on Northern Ireland.’ What makes May’s comments so interesting is that many believe, including the Foreign Secretary, that the EU is raising the stakes on the Irish border to try and get the UK, as a whole, to commit to staying in a customs union with the EU. May seems to want to make clear to other

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Brexiteers, you were warned about Ireland

If you wished to get to an easy Brexit, well, this isn’t the starting point you’d choose. Once again, the Irish question complicates life for Theresa May’s government. Today’s EU proposals suggesting that, in the absence of a satisfactory deal of the kind proposed back in December, Northern Ireland should, essentially, remain within the EU customs union are both evidently unacceptable to the UK government and a reminder that this is still a negotiated process. What is put on the table today is not necessarily what will be on the table when it is over.  It is difficult to see how any UK government could agree to a ‘solution’ which,

Ross Clark Ross Clark

What are Jeremy Corbyn and Michel Barnier up to?

The Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport recently investigated claims of Russian interference in the UK electoral process. The committee might soon be forced to go one further and investigate EU interference in our political system.  How remarkable that today’s ‘legally-binding’ document from Michel Barnier, which tries to keep Northern Ireland in a customs union with the EU comes just 48 hours after Jeremy Corbyn made a speech changing Labour’s policy in order to commit the UK as a whole to remain within the customs union. I am not party to any conversations Jeremy Corbyn might have had with Michel Barnier or his team, but the Labour leader

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Growing concern among Brexiteers over ‘exploitation’ of Irish border

Is the Irish border problem being used to frustrate Brexit? That’s the claim made by the Foreign Secretary this morning. After Sky News published an excerpt of a letter Boris Johnson wrote to the Prime Minister in which he appeared to concede that physical infrastructure at the border post-Brexit was an option, Johnson gave a breakfast interview (straight from his run) to try and clarify his comments. Johnson insisted the letter he wrote was ‘very good’ (and said he looks forward to publishing it in full) but warned that the border issue was being exploited by those who wish to frustrate Brexit: ‘What is going on at the moment is

Tuesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Are the Brexit talks bordering on collapse?

The question of the Irish border has almost collapsed the Brexit talks once, remember Mrs May’s first abortive December trip to Brussels, and it is threatening to do so again. A leaked copy of the EU’s proposed legal text of the phase one agreement that was finally reached in December says that if other options cannot be made to work Northern Ireland would be considered part of the customs territory of the EU. Given the UK’s plan is to leave the customs union, this would—in effect—create an internal economic border within the UK. It is doubtful whether this would be acceptable to any UK government, but it is particularly unacceptable

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Max Mosley’s disastrous Channel 4 interview – ‘that probably is racist’

Oh dear. This week the Daily Mail published the findings of an investigation into the ‘racist and thuggish’ past of ex-Formula One boss Max Mosley. The paper asked whether Mosley – who donated more than £500,000 to Tom Watson, lied at his orgy privacy trial. Under oath at the High Court, Mosley denied a leaflet allegedly published by him on ‘coloured immigrants’ existed. However, the Mail claims to have tracked it down in a historical archive. The pamphlet says ‘coloured immigrants’ spread ‘tuberculosis, VD and other terrible diseases like leprosy’. It says they should be sent ‘home’ because ‘coloured immigration threatens your children’s health’. Mosley denies the claims and appeared on Channel 4

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour’s slow running-down of the media

Yesterday, after Jeremy Corbyn’s speech on Brexit, he moved on from press questions about the substance of his policy change to seeking non-media questions. It was presumably to show that Labour is more interested in the real questions of real people rather than the biased agenda of the press. That real question ended up being ‘please will you hurry up and be our Prime Minister?’ Corbynites would argue that even a question as pointless as this is better than the mocking tone that journalists take as they try to claim, on the basis of whispered gossip, that this is a result of some kind of Shadow Cabinet falling out. Why

Steerpike Steerpike

Michael Gove takes a swipe at Barnier

Here we go. Although Theresa May and her government are meant to be on a Brussels charm offensive ahead of next month’s crunch EU council meeting, Michael Gove couldn’t resist a dig at the other side today. The Defra minister – who has recast himself as an eco-warrior in recent months – took issue with a meeting between Donald Tusk and Michel Barnier on Brexit. The problem? The pair used plastic bottles – a strict no-no in May’s green Cabinet. Why the plastic bottles @eucopresident? You should be aligning with us in ditching this environment-damaging habit… #greenbrexit https://t.co/oODv4EiClt — Michael Gove (@michaelgove) February 27, 2018 It seems the reasons to

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: John Bercow gives the Chancellor a ticking off – ‘stick to your abacus!’

Oh dear. It’s no secret that there is little love lost between the Conservatives and the Speaker. John Bercow rarely misses an opportunity to discipline his former comrades in the Chamber. Today was no exception. During Treasury questions, Philip Hammond found himself in the firing line. Bercow interrupted Liz Truss as she responded to a question from Labour. Taking objection with her reply – which appeared to consist of her listing Labour council spending failures – the Speaker but her response short. When the Chancellor pulled a face, Bercow saw red – and told Spreadsheet Phil he ought to stick to his abacus: ‘If the Chancellor is confused about it

Steerpike Steerpike

Former civil servant’s Remain lobbying

Liam Fox is set to take to the stage this afternoon to give a speech on the opportunities of free trade as part of the government’s roadmap to Brexit. Only the International Trade Secretary has already hit a bump in the road. The former permanent secretary at his department, Martin Donnelly, has launched a broadside attack on the government’s plans. He has likened leaving the EU single market and customs union to ‘rejecting a three-course meal now in favour of the promise of a packet of crisps later’. Putting aside why Donnelly ever thought it would be a good idea to work in a department dedicated to free trade if he was

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Are we tired of Brexit yet?

If you wish to understand this government you might begin with Robert Conquest’s third law of politics. Namely, that ‘The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies’. This is certainly a more plausible hypothesis than any obviously available alternative. Indeed, there are times when you begin to think this government’s mission must be to persuade us that, contrary to the evidence hitherto presented, a government led by Jeremy Corbyn might be no bad thing. Or, at any rate, no worse than the government we have now.  Take Liam Fox and Boris Johnson, for instance,

Douglas Murray

The BBC’s coverage of Ben Bradley’s apology to Corbyn is fascinating

The story about Jeremy Corbyn’s contacts with a member of Czech intelligence in the 1980s has not been treated with great seriousness by our national broadcaster.  At first the BBC deigned not to run the story.  Then they treated it like some kind of joke.  For instance, given a chance to question Corbyn over his past record the BBC journalist Steph McGovern last week bowled Corbyn the humorous soft-ball ‘A final question: are you a Czech spy?’  A question which gave much opportunity for laughter and a firm ‘No’ from Corbyn, who now insists (as he does whenever he is caught in similar situations) that he was in fact discussing

James Kirkup James Kirkup

The violent misogyny of the gender debate

Journalists and politicians talk a lot about freedom of speech, and rightly so, because the ability to express thoughts and opinions without fear or restraint is the foundation of democracy. We must be free to question, free to doubt, or we are not free at all. But for journalists and politicians, ‘freedom of speech’ can feel a bit of an abstract concept, a debating point not a matter of personal safety. We talk about curbs on free speech as things that make it harder for us to do what we do – write and talk. We rarely think about them in terms of physical fear. So a couple of weeks

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

How British managers and Chinese communists are destroyed by the perks they take for granted

On the face of it, Lu Wei, the former director of China’s Cyberspace Administration, and Professor Max Lu, vice chancellor of the University of Surrey, have little in common. Mr Lu was the world’s most powerful censor. He maintained the great firewall of China and did all he could to stop 730 million Internet users reading or seeing anything the Communist Party might not approve of. Professor Lu, by contrast, is an authority on chemical engineering and nanotechnology. When Surrey appointed him a delighted spokesman  exclaimed he was one of ‘only 150 double highly cited academics in the world, with over 500 peer-reviewed articles published in top journals, attracting more

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Rumour about May’s customs union stance excites Remainers

Could the Conservatives crash out of government in the next few months? That’s certainly a prospect that Theresa May’s allies want to talk up in order to scare would-be supporters of Anna Soubry’s amendment on Britain staying in ‘a’ customs union after Brexit. We discuss whether making the amendment a confidence issue is really the smartest move on our latest Coffee House Shots podcast – and in today’s Evening Standard I report that Remainers really do think the whips would be calling their bluff by adopting this strategy. But I’ve also picked up an interesting theory doing the rounds among would-be rebels, which is that Theresa May will use her

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Labour is no longer ‘for the many’

Jeremy Corbyn’s speech today in which he confirmed that a Labour government would keep Britain in a Customs Union with the EU was about so much more than trade. It was about the future of the Labour party itself. It sent a clear message about what, and more importantly who, Labour is for these days. It confirmed that Labour has finally made its choice between which of its two, quite conflictual support bases it will represent in public life: the better-off ones, the middle-class ones, the Southern ones. This is what Labour’s cosying up to the idea of a Customs Union — which is a betrayal of Brexit, whatever Labourites

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Tory Remainers dial down the rhetoric

Can Jeremy Corbyn’s big Brexit speech be classed as a success? It really depends on who you think it was aimed at. Unsurprisingly the softening of Labour’s Brexit stance has been welcomed by the party’s Remain-backing membership. On top of that, the Labour leader managed to please big business – for a change. Corbyn’s announcement that Labour would back the UK staying in ‘a’ customs union with the EU post-Brexit has been praised by the Institute of Directiors while the CBI say the policy would ‘put jobs and living standards first’. However, sceptics argue that the target audience for the speech was actually the Conservative party. With Anna Soubry tabling an