Politics

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

Friday

2 Feb 2024

Sinn Fein’s rise to power is nothing to celebrate

The resumption of devolution in Northern Ireland – scheduled for tomorrow after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) reached a deal with the UK Government earlier this week – marks a big moment: for the first time in the history of Northern Ireland, there will be a nationalist First Minister. Sinn Fein, a party still viewed by the security services as being in lockstep with the IRA, became the largest party at the 2022 Assembly Election. As a result, their leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, is entitled to be nominated as the Province’s First Minister. Irish nationalists and republicans are now masters of a state designed for their exclusion. Sinn Fein

Steerpike

Home Office afflicted by top talent crisis

Rishi Sunak has made ‘stopping the boats’ central to his premiership. So it is, er, sub-optimal then that word reaches Steerpike that the efforts of the Home Office are being hindered by a lack of top talent. The department might have grown in staff numbers by nearly a third since 2010 but Whitehall sources claim that there was only one candidate last year to fill the department’s key role of Director of General Migration and Borders. The role in question was eventually filled by Daniel Hobbs, the department’s head of asylum, protection and enforcement, in August 2023. A Home Office spokesman told Mr S: Dan Hobbs was picked for the

Natasha Feroze

Should ex-MPs stop shilling for foreign rulers?

12 min listen

In his Telegraph column, Fraser Nelson makes the case that it’s time to ban former politicians accepting jobs from foreign rulers. The likes of Tony Blair, George Osborne and David Cameron have all made money from government’s abroad. But is this becoming more of a problem? And are their critics simply a product of their success? Natasha Feroze speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Heale.

Ross Clark

Rugby isn’t child abuse. But it is dangerous

Why is no one only slightly wrong any more? We don’t say or do things that are foolish or ill-thought out – rather we are immediately guilty of fascism, genocide or child abuse. We don’t deserve to be merely argued against – we deserve to put before an inquisition, in a cage. I guess that academics at Winchester University have deliberately chosen to use the words ‘child abuse’ in a paper in the Journal of the British Philosophy Association, arguing that schoolchildren shouldn’t be forced to play rugby in order to gain attention. If so, they have succeeded, because it is doubtful that the story would have made it into the newspapers, and

Brendan O’Neill

What was the Clapham chemical attack suspect doing in Britain?

Here’s my question about Abdul Ezedi, the suspect in the Clapham chemical attack: what the hell was he doing in this country? He came here from Afghanistan by illegal means. He was twice turned down for asylum. And in 2018, at Newcastle Crown Court, he was found guilty of sexual assault. And yet despite all that he was later granted asylum, after a priest vouched that he had converted to Christianity. Now this supposed Christian stands accused of repaying the witless charity of our nation by allegedly carrying out one of the grimmest crimes imaginable: dousing a mother and her two daughters with a corrosive substance. The injuries sustained by

Andrew Tettenborn

Viktor Orban has proved he’s a shrewd negotiator

All eyes were on Hungary’s Viktor Orbán at yesterday’s EU summit in Brussels. The issue at stake was simple but vital. The EU wanted to provide €50 billion (£43 billion) in aid to Ukraine over four years, but this use of the bloc’s funds required unanimity from all member states. Orbán remained unconvinced. But would he continue unmovable, or would he budge? And if so what price would he demand? Hungary has always been concerned to keep as judiciously uncommitted as possible in the Russia – Ukraine conflict. Orban was instinctively unhappy about supporting the EU’s stance that was, whatever its virtues, highly partisan. Besides, he had other bones to

Gavin Mortimer

France’s farmers will be back on Paris’s doorstep before long

In a week full of symbolism in France, the most striking image was the sight of armoured cars blocking the path of tractors outside Paris. The city’s first great wall was constructed at the end of the 12th century on the orders of Philip Augustus, but here was a new wall, of armour, erected at the command of Emmanuel Macron. They shall not pass. And so they didn’t. A few tractors made it as far as the international market at Rungis, five miles south of Paris; their drivers were arrested and held overnight. They were released a short time before Prime Gabriel Attal announced a new set of measures to placate

Katy Balls

Keir Starmer’s £28 billion problem

Another day, another story about Labour’s plans to ditch its pledge to spend £28 billion a year on green investment. The Guardian reports that party sources say the policy is destined for the chopping block – despite Keir Starmer saying on Thursday at the party’s business conference that the plan to spend £28 billion a year on green investment in the second half of the parliament remains in place so long as it meets the party’s fiscal rules. Notably, his shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves was less effusive, refusing to commit to the policy despite being asked ten times in a Sky News interview. As I say in this week’s magazine,

Katy Balls

The Gina Miller Edition

32 min listen

Gina Miller was born in Guyana to a political family, but was sent to England for her education. Fleeing dictatorship, she couldn’t receive financial support from her family, and so began finding work in hotels and handing out flyers. With an entrepreneurial spirit, Gina set up her first company in 1987 – a property photographic company. Since then, her CV boasts a myriad of achievements, degrees, the Vanity Fair Challenger Award and financial services. But she is most well known as the woman who set up the first legal challenge to the government’s attempts to trigger article 50 in 2016. Since then, my guest has worked on many anti-Brexit campaigns and

Nigel Jones

Why have Germany’s spies opened a file on their old chief?

It’s not often that an ex-spymaster is spied upon by his former colleagues. But just that has happened in Germany, where Hans-Georg Maassen, the former head of the country’s internal security service, the BfD (equivalent to Britain’s MI5), has been placed on a watch list for official observation as a suspected right-wing extremist. Maassen, who ran the BfD until he was elbowed out in 2018 after appearing to play down the threat of violence from right-wing extremists, is no stranger to attracting attention. In 2021, Maassen said that chancellor Angela Merkel’s immigration policies were ‘fatal’: The spy agency has also accused its former chief of being in close touch with the

Thursday

1 Feb 2024

Natasha Feroze

Is Labour the party of business?

12 min listen

At the ‘Labour Business Conference 2024′, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves wooed business with a pledge that Labour would not raise corporation tax in their first term. Instead, she told the audience of FTSE 100 chief execs that a Labour government would keep the current cap at 25 per cent. How convincing is Reeves’ big pitch to business? Also on the podcast, the big news this week has been the Northern Ireland negotiations. What’s happened in parliament today? Natasha Feroze speaks to Katy Balls and James Heale. Produced by Natasha Feroze and Oscar Edmondson.

Kate Andrews

How the Tories gave up on liberty

43 min listen

On the podcast: have the Tories given up on liberty? Kate Andrews writes the cover story for The Spectator this week. She argues that after the government announced plans to ban disposable vapes and smoking for those born after 2009, the Tories can no longer call themselves the party of freedom. Kate is joined by conservative peer and former health minister Lord Bethell, to discuss whether the smoking ban is a wise precedent for the government to set. (01:22) Also this week: can the UAE be trusted on press freedom? At The Spectator that’s a question close to our hearts at the moment as we face possibly being sold off to an Abu Dhabi

Iain Macwhirter

Nicola Sturgeon wasn’t the only one to politicise the pandemic

Nicola Sturgeon ‘could cry from one eye if she wanted to,’ Alister Jack told the UK Covid Inquiry this morning. It was an interesting medical observation from the Scottish Secretary presumably intended to suggest that the former first minister’s emotional moments in her evidence yesterday were contrived. Sturgeon fought back tears a number of times when she insisted she just wanted ‘to be the best first minister I could be’ during the pandemic, resolute in her denials that she had had ulterior political motives. ‘I didn’t believe it for a minute,’ Jack, the Tory MP for Dumfries asserted, roundly accusing the former first minister of politicising the pandemic. Sturgeon had

Kate Andrews

Interest rate cuts are on the horizon

The Bank of England (BoE) has held interest rates at 5.25 per cent for the fourth time in a row. This is no big surprise: with inflation ticking back up slightly on the year to December (rising to 4 per cent) – continued trade disruption in the Red Sea last month is expected to have some impact on prices – it was unlikely that the Monetary Policy Committee was going to start a rate-cutting spree so early in the year. Instead, the hints are in the language used by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in its report. Markets were looking for clear indication that rate cuts are coming. The BoE has delivered this,

Steven Barrett

The Northern Ireland Brexit deal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be

Rishi Sunak’s new Brexit deal is an end to any dreams of a UK that runs itself. Much of the focus has been on Northern Ireland, with the government hailing the legislation as a means of halting post-Brexit checks on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But there are far bigger – and more troubling – implications for the UK as a whole. Sunak’s deal makes it clear that our laws are still, in some cases, second to EU laws. So ignore the fanfare that the new deal, agreed with the DUP and called ‘Safeguarding the Union’, is something to celebrate. A large, dramatic, sleight of hand is

Katy Balls

Labour woos business with a corporation tax pledge

One of the big changes in the Labour party since Keir Starmer took over from Jeremy Corbyn is the approach to business. Rachel Reeves, Starmer’s shadow chancellor, made wooing the business community a top priority. Today, Starmer and Reeves went further with the ‘Labour Business Conference 2024’ held at The Oval, where Reeves said that a Labour government would not raise corporation tax in its first term. Instead, she told the audience of FTSE 100 chief executives that a Labour government would keep the current cap of 25 per cent. This, she said, would provide certainty to business. Reeves went further still, adding that she would keep open the possibility

Steerpike

Ed Davey says sorry, finally

For Sir Ed Davey, sorry seems to be the hardest word to say. Three weeks ago, the embattled Lib Dem leader was asked to apologise for his role in the Post Office scandal but refused to do so ten times in an interview with ITV. Yet now, with his party plummeting in the polls, the former cabinet minister has thrown in the towel and uttered the forbidden word beginning with ‘s’. Writing in the Guardian, Davey, whose business minister role from 2010 to 2012 involved oversight of the Post Office, said officials had initially advised him to not meet Alan Bates, who led the campaign into the unjust targeting of

Dean Godson

The post-Brexit crisis in Northern Ireland is finally over

Rishi Sunak, with almost daily input from Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the Democratic Unionist Party leader, has just delivered a deal on the Windsor Framework that is notably pro-Unionist. He has managed to do so in the face of EU intransigence, an unhelpful White House, the ‘resistible rise’ of Sinn Fein in the Republic of Ireland, hard-line Loyalist rejectionism, and purist Brexiteer scepticism. All this is the antithesis of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of November 1985 – the 40th anniversary of which falls next year – both in the substance of what has been negotiated and also how it was negotiated. To restore the devolved institutions on these terms represents a memorable achievement, considering the demographic

Stephen Daisley

Nothing will change after Mike Freer stands down

Nothing will change in the wake of Mike Freer’s decision to stand down. That a Member of Parliament says he is leaving politics because of intimidation from Islamists is troubling enough, but Freer is a government minister. If the state cannot protect him, can it protect any of us? In a letter to his local constituency association, the Conservative MP says he has received ‘several serious threats to my personal safety’ during his 14 years representing Finchley and Golders Green. He cited ‘attacks by Muslims Against Crusades, Ali Harbi Ali and the recent arson attack (where the motives remain unclear)’ for motivating his decision. Everyone will agree that something must

James Heale

Tory MPs to back power-sharing deal

After nearly two years, it looks like power-sharing will shortly be restored at Stormont. This afternoon MPs will pass two statutory instruments (SI) which will pave the way for the restoration of the executive in Belfast. The Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and Minister Steve Baker will lead two 90-minute debates on changes to the Windsor Framework for goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The subject of Northern Ireland’s future featured little in the EU referendum campaign but has since proved to be arguably the thorniest Brexit-related issue in subsequent years. Today though, we can expect little of the sound and fury which has characterised much of the debate