Politics Archives

Thursday

26 Apr 2018

Letters | 26 April 2018

Resetting Brexit Sir: I agree with Fraser Nelson’s article ‘Brexit blunders’ (21 April). I am a Leaver, but immigration did not figure in my decision in the referendum. On the contrary, I recall many years ago hearing that some 240 languages were spoken in London and the UK, and for some reason it made me immensely proud. If Theresa May does not understand that immigration is not the issue, then we have the wrong leader. My suspicions in this regard are further strengthened by her stated but continually thwarted ambitions to have a special relationship with the EU bloc. Her attempts are relentlessly rebuffed and, because of the EU’s fear of

Alex Massie

Ruth Davidson and the politics of pregnancy

In the early days of The Independent, when the newspaper was self-consciously serious to the point of being mildly priggish, Royal events were frequently relegated to the news in brief column. This week, nodding to those sunnier days for The Independent, the happy arrival of the Duchess of Cambridge’s third child was greeted by the headline “woman gives birth to baby boy”. Well, indeed. It is tempting to treat the news that Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party, is pregnant as a matter of equally trivial non-news news. After all, as Davidson said herself in the statement she posted on Twitter announcing this cheerful development

Katy Balls

Amber Rudd breeds confusion on Brexit

Amber Rudd has had a torrid few weeks thanks to the Windrush scandal and her department’s failure to get a grip on the issue. Matters weren’t helped on Wednesday when Rudd told the Home Affairs select committee that her department doesn’t ‘have targets for removals’ of illegal immigrants – only to have to today admit that ‘the immigration arm of the Home Office has been using local targets for internal performance management’. Now it looks as though Rudd has risked the wrath of both No 10 and the Brexiteers. Speaking at today’s Press Gallery Lunch, Rudd was asked whether the UK would stay in the customs union after all. Her reply:

Steerpike

What Westminster eats for lunch

Dominic Raab has found himself the subject of much mockery today after one of his aides allegedly told an undercover reporter about his rather repetitious lunch habits: ‘He has the chicken Caesar and bacon baguette, superfruit pot and the vitamin volcano smoothie, every day. He is so weird. It’s the Dom Raab Special.’ Happily, Mr S’s mole reports that he has not been put off – he was spotted back in Pret this lunchtime. Still, just so he is not alone – Mr S has reached out to MPs, ministers, SpAds and staffers to discover the eating habits of Westminster’s big beasts: Sadiq Khan: The Mayor of London varies his

Steerpike

Gavin Williamson’s PR blitz

Today’s Sun reports that Cabinet ‘big beasts’ – Michael Gove, Amber Rudd and Gavin Williamson – are amassing ‘huge war chests’ as they line up leadership bids. Williamson is on £10,000 – behind both Rudd and Gove. Still, the ambitious Defence Secretary is making sure he is not outdone on other fronts. Williamson is down to give a ‘wide-ranging’ speech at next week’s Institute of Economic Affairs bash – and then the following week will be a star guest at the Conservative Progress conference – an event stuffed with Tory activists. Well, with Gove lined up to advise not one, but three new Tory think tanks, Williamson still has work to

Stephen Daisley

Nicola Sturgeon’s response to Brexit has utterly failed

What’s Nicola Sturgeon playing at on Brexit? Quick answer: politics. Longer answer: politics. The SNP leader has rejected a deal to resolve the impasse between Westminster and Holyrood over the repatriation of powers from Brussels. She accuses the Tories of a ‘power grab’ because some areas of responsibility will initially go to the UK rather than Scottish parliament and threatens to deny consent to the government’s Brexit Bill. If she does so – and her SNP holds a majority of seats at Holyrood with unofficial junior coalition partners, the Greens – it will fix a procedural wheel clamp on Brexit. At which point, the only way the Bill could go

Rod Liddle

The roots of Labour’s bigotry

Another word which has gained a new meaning in the present decade, along with ‘vulnerable’ and ‘diverse’: survivor. Once it meant a person who had been transported to Auschwitz but somehow came out alive. Or a person who had been involved in a terrible car crash but had escaped with only a broken neck. Today it means someone whose nipple was perhaps gently tweaked by a light entertainment star 40 years ago. Or someone who was mildly and almost certainly justifiably bullied at school. I’m also getting a little weary of the elephant in the room. It has become for me, when talking about transformative grammar, the elephant in the

James Forsyth

Beware a Brexiteer who feels betrayed

It is sometimes tempting to imagine that the Brexit negotiations will follow the course of a Sunday night TV drama: weeks of suspense, then everything is miraculously resolved with five minutes to go. Last December’s agreement was a case in point. Theresa May turned up to see Jean-Claude Juncker, the Commission President, expecting to do a deal; then the Irish border hit and the whole process seemed in danger. But the Prime Minister made a pre-dawn dash to Brussels just four days later and a deal was done. This has all added to Westminster’s sense that, ultimately, everything will be alright on the night. This means Westminster is underestimating the

Lionel Shriver

The Home Office nearly deported my husband

What I remember about preparing to leave for my husband’s appointment with the Home Office in Croydon in 2007 is hysteria. A tizzy was not unprecedented; in our household, it’s always the man who’s in a dither, seeing to last-minute primping and chronically unable to get out the door on time. But on this occasion I, too, was rattled, snapping impatiently as I double-checked an enormous bag of documents. A fair bit was at stake. An American, I had acquired my own Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) — a grand designation for ‘residency’ that only the British would coin — during a looser era of the Writers and Artists Visa,

Wednesday

25 Apr 2018

Isabel Hardman

Amber Rudd is reminded of the Home Office’s reputation as a political graveyard

Amber Rudd must, privately, be hopping mad about the Windrush row. Not only is she having to defend policies that her predecessor and now boss introduced when she was Home Secretary, she is also having to try to resolve the mess that was exacerbated by Number 10 in initially refusing a meeting with Commonwealth leaders about the matter, and then made worse still by Caroline Nokes’ interview suggesting that people had been wrongly deported when there was no such evidence of this happening. That’s not to say that Rudd doesn’t have her own questions to answer: as she argued herself this afternoon when before the Home Affairs Committee, while the

Lloyd Evans

Why didn’t David Lammy give Corbyn a helping hand at PMQs?

The royal nativity opened proceedings at PMQs. Mrs May sounded thrilled about the newborn nipper but the Labour leader could barely conceal his ill-temper. Mr Corbyn slouched at the despatch box and forced a muttered tribute to ‘their baby’ out of the side of his mouth. He sounded like a man who’s just twisted his knee laying flowers on his mother-in-law’s grave. But why the aversion to Supermum Kate’s non-stop sproggery? A wise Marxist ought to welcome a population explosion at the palace. The more numerous and parasitical the royals, the swifter and bloodier their overthrow. Mr Corbyn led on the Windrush crisis and accused Mrs May of creating ‘a

James Forsyth

Len McCluskey inflames Labour’s anti-Semitism row

Len McCluskey, the secretary-general of Unite and a key Corbyn ally, has poured petrol on the flames of the Labour row over anti-Semitism. In a piece in the forthcoming issue of the New Statesman, he accuses a group of backbench Labour MPs of using the anti-Semitism issue ‘to attack and undermine Jeremy Corbyn’. McCluskey claims that there is a significant overlap between those criticising Jeremy Corbyn for his approach to dealing with anti-Semitism in the party and those who backed Theresa May over the Syria strikes. McCluskey singles out Chris Leslie, Neil Coyle, John Woodcock, Wes Streeting, Ian Austin and Angela Smith for particular criticism. He writes, with almost pantomime

Isabel Hardman

The Maybot returns at PMQs

Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions saw the Maybot reactivated. Jeremy Corbyn decided to lead the session on the fallout from the Windrush row, widening out his questions to the flaws in the hostile environment policy on illegal immigration, and on who was to blame for these flaws being apparent but not fixed for so long. The exchanges very swiftly became a ding-dong between May and Corbyn as to whose fault the creation of a hostile environment policy actually was. Corbyn wanted to pin the policy on May, but also demanded that Amber Rudd resign for aiming to harden the policy. His questions were decent, but it was May herself who created

Tom Goodenough

David Davis tries to calm fears over a customs union reversal

For those Brexiteers worried the government may change its mind on leaving the customs union, David Davis’s appearance in front of a select committee gave reasons for reassurance – but also possibly some cause to worry. The Brexit secretary was clear that he is sticking firmly to his guns on the issue. But can he – and the government – continue to do so under pressure from MPs who are seeking to keep Britain inside the customs union? Hilary Benn asked Davis what would happen if the vote in Parliament on the Brexit trade bill went against the government. Here’s what Davis had to say: Benn: You have emphatically rejected

Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘positive and constructive’ anti-Semitism meeting

Oh dear. On Tuesday evening, Jeremy Corbyn met with Jewish leaders to discuss his party’s anti-Semitism problem. The meeting didn’t sound as though it would be the most harmonious affair what with the Labour leader accused of not taking the concerns of the Jewish community seriously – and his decision to meet with the ‘radical’ fringe group Jewdas first. So, there was much relief when Corbyn issued a post-meeting statement heralding a ‘positive and constructive’ meeting: ‘We will continue to engage and work with Jewish community organisations to deal with this issue. Our party will not fail our Jewish brothers and sisters.’ Only, it seems the Jewish representatives at the meeting

Tuesday

24 Apr 2018

James Forsyth

May and Boris in Cabinet clash over immigration amnesty

At Cabinet today, ministers discussed the fallout from the Windrush scandal. I understand that Boris Johnson made the point that there needed to be a broader immigration amnesty for long-standing Commonwealth immigrants. He argued that this was necessary to prevent others from getting caught up in the same situation, having to produce overly onerous amounts of evidence to show that they have been living here for years. Obviously, this amnesty wouldn’t apply to those with a criminal record. I’m told that Theresa May then rather acidly remarked that Boris had previously called for an amnesty for all immigrants, which he did first in 2008 and then again in 2016 when he privately proposed

Steerpike

EU commissioner: at least it’s not Jacob Rees-Mogg at the negotiating table

Oh dear. As anxiety grows about the Theresa May’s customs union stance, Jacob Rees-Mogg has this afternoon told hacks that the government’s mooted customs partnership is ‘completely cretinous’. The Moggster’s tough talk will play out well among Brexiteers who fear May’s own resolve has weakened in recent months. What will play out less well with the Brexit camp, however, is a comment made by a European commissioner appearing to make this very point. Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Phil Hogan, the Irish agriculture commissioner on the 28-strong executive, broke from the script and made a choice comment when asked about Rees-Mogg’s claim that the UK government should call the

Steerpike

Amber Rudd’s shopping misstep

Amber Rudd is not having a good few weeks thanks to her department’s shaky handling of the Windrush scandal. Now she’s under fire on another front: shoes. The Financial Times reports that the Home Secretary told guests at a private business dinner this month that the post-Brexit registration scheme for EU nationals will be ‘as easy to use as setting up an online account at LK Bennett’. Alas, L K Bennett does not pass the ‘know the price of a pint of milk and you are in touch with the people’ test – given that the pricy fashion chain sells shoes for over £200. But then again, what else would

Brendan O’Neill

Count Dankula and the death of free speech

On freedom of speech, Britain has become the laughing stock of the Western world. People actually laugh at us. I recently gave a talk in Brazil on political correctness and I told the audience about the arrest and conviction of a Scottish man for publishing a video of his girlfriend’s pug doing a Nazi salute for a joke and they laughed. Loudly. Some of them refused to believed it was true. I found the news report on my iPhone and showed them. They laughed again. Brazilians, inhabitants of a nation not that long out of military dictatorship, are shocked at how illiberal Britain has become. As we should be, too.

Monday

23 Apr 2018

Katy Balls

Windrush scandal – why hasn’t anyone resigned?

The Home Secretary cut a solemn figure in the Commons today as she attempted to clear up the Windrush immigration mess. After a weekend of torrid headlines and claims the Home Office knew of the problem long before they acted, Amber Rudd tried to make amends. Rudd apologised again before attempting to spread the blame – claiming the current situation (by which Caribbean migrants who came to the UK between 1948 and 1973 have wrongly been threatened with deportation) was the result of successive governments introducing measures to combat illegal immigration. She acknowledged the ‘unintended and devastating’ impact these errors had had on the families and promised speedy compensation. Rudd