Politics

Theresa May’s visit to Washington to meet President Trump last week was seen, before it happened, as being beneficial to both sides. The Prime Minister’s allies in government thought this was an excellent opportunity for May to show the new President how it was done – and to send a message to the world that Britain really matters. But today things look a little less advantageous for the Prime Minister. That her visit was swiftly followed by Trump signing an executive order which halts all refugee admissions and temporarily bans people from seven countries has put the Prime Minister under pressure to criticise the man whose hand she ended up

So now Theresa May knows what it’s like to be Tangoed. Her visit to Washington, hailed a ‘triumph’ by friendly newspapers, has become a liability. Life comes at you fast, especially when you launch a diplomatic initiative on a wing and a prayer, not in response to a clinical evaluation of its likely outcome. Because who can really be surprised that hugging Donald Trump close would so swiftly induce a form of diplomatic blowback? Who is surprised that tying yourself to an administration as vicious as it is incompetent might prove a high-risk enterprise? The Prime Minister played two roles on her trip to the United States. She was both supplicant and

This weekend Theresa May discovered why it is a prime minister most fears events. After a well executed two-day charm offensive in America cementing the UK/US special relationship, the Prime Minister was plunged into a row over President Trump’s decision to stop travellers and refugees from seven Muslim countries gaining entry into the US. May’s sluggish response to condemn the move (after initially dodging the question in a press conference in Turkey) has led to her being branded ‘Theresa the appeaser’. As Jeremy Corbyn appeared on Peston on Sunday to put pressure on the Prime Minister over her relationship with Trump, May borrowed a trick from Osborne and sent David Gauke to try and clear up

Another day, another front-bench resignation from Labour. After Tulip Siddiq quit the front-bench over Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to impose a three-line whip on the Article 50 vote, Jo Stevens has today followed suit. The shadow secretary for Wales has resigned from her post after coming to the conclusion she could not reconcile herself to voting to trigger article 50 as she believed leaving the EU would be ‘a terrible mistake’. Stevens’ departure is particularly striking as Wales was actually more pro-Brexit than the UK as a whole. However, her seat (Cardiff central) is a Labour/Liberal Democrat marginal that voted heavily to Remain. It follows that this is another example of

Last week, Lily Allen became the subject of much mockery online after she claimed to have discovered the flaw in Theresa May’s plan for a global Britain. The pop singer said Brexit was unlikely to be a success as the ‘world still hates us’ because of… slavery. While Allen has refrained from offering any further Brexit analysis this week, she has managed to upset those she claims to be on the side of. The singer has recorded an anti-Trump song — which the website Gay Times shared online. Pleased by the publicity, Allen declared that this must mean ‘f–s hate Trump’. Fags hate trump https://t.co/VZekBaX7o5 — Lily Allen (@lilyallen) January 25, 2017 Alas

On Thursday afternoon, huge numbers of ministerial Range Rovers swept into Parliament after government whips got whiff of an SNP plot to mess with the government’s Brexit plans. Believing the SNP were planning to call for a last-minute vote on next week’s business involving the Brexit bill, Tory MPs came back to make up the numbers. In the end, the ambush failed to materialise but the incident is a sign of the tactics to come now that Brexit has entered its parliamentary phase. The government bill, which contains just two clauses and is 137 words long, states that its aim is to ‘confer power on the prime minister to notify,

Theresa May mentioned Donald Trump only once in her speech to the Republicans gathered in Philadelphia tonight, but its centrepiece was a gift to him. In his inauguration speech, he said that the US was now out of the business of liberal interventionism. She told Republicans that the same applies to Britain. Here’s the key quote:- It is in our interests – those of Britain and America together – to stand strong together to defend our values, our interests and the very ideas in which we believe.  This cannot mean a return to the failed policies of the past. The days of Britain and America intervening in sovereign countries in an

Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead, has resigned from the Labour front bench over Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to impose a three-line whip on the Article 50 vote. Siddiq’s argument is that she doesn’t back triggering Article 50 and nor does her constituency, which voted heavily to Remain in the EU, and so she can’t support Labour’s official position on this issue. Siddiq’s resignation, the first Brexit front bench resignation, is a reminder that—as I say in my column this week — the Article 50 vote will be more politically difficult for Labour than the Conservatives. Labour MPs for Leave-voting constituencies don’t want it to look like they or their

After the government lost its Supreme Court appeal, Article 50 must now be triggered by an Act of Parliament. As a result, Theresa May must now put a bill through Parliament on triggering Article 50 to take the UK out of the European Union. Today the two-clause bill was given its first reading — and can now be published:   While the majority of MPs are not expected to block Brexit, many are hoping to amend the legislation so that it involves a range of caveats regarding the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU. In this vein, the SNP — before even seeing the bill — promised a whole 50 amendments,