Politics

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

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Guardian forced to delete viral Bin Laden letter

Oh dear. It seems that the world’s wokest newspaper has blundered, again. The Guardian has today been forced to remove a letter by, er, Osama Bin Laden after it went viral on TikTok. The letter had proudly been up on the Graun’s website since 2002, explaining how the terror chief launched his war against the United States in part because of its support of Israel. But now in its place is a sign with the headline ‘Removed: document’ and a brief explainer: This page previously displayed a document containing, in translation, the full text of Osama bin Laden’s ‘letter to the American people’, as reported in the Observer on Sunday 24 November

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Jess Phillips and the shame of Labour’s ceasefire rebels

I can’t decide if last night’s Labour revolt was an act of pointless narcissism or sinister appeasement. Maybe it was both. On one hand it will make not the slightest difference to world affairs that 56 Labour MPs defied their party leader and backed an ‘immediate ceasefire’ in the Israel-Hamas war. They ignored Keir Starmer’s plea for party unity on the right of Israel to defend itself against the anti-Semitic terrorists of Hamas and put their names to an SNP amendment calling for an end to the ‘collective punishment of the Palestinian people’. Will the Israelis be quaking in their boots that such political luminaries as Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Naz

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Cameron’s Ukraine trip provides a welcome boost for Zelensky

Just days after returning to government as Lord Cameron, the former prime minister and new Foreign Secretary has made his first foreign visit. Unsurprisingly, the destination of this trip was Kyiv, to meet with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.  The news of Cameron’s visit broke early this morning, although whether it took place this morning or earlier in the week remains unclear thanks to the wartime high security protocols that exist around such visits. In footage posted by Zelensky to X/Twitter, the Ukrainian premier is shown welcoming Cameron and his delegation to Kyiv. Shaking hands, Cameron calls it an ‘enormous honour’ to meet Zelensky. Cameron’s visit to Ukraine will have provided

Jim Lawley

Pedro Sanchez’s grubby deal to stay in power

In 2017 the Catalan premier, Carles Puigdemont, having first organised an illegal referendum and then declared unilateral independence from Spain, escaped arrest by hiding in the boot of a car. While other Catalan leaders went to prison for sedition, Puigdemont fled to Belgium where he’s spent most of the last six years living comfortably in self-imposed exile. Now he’s preparing to make a triumphant return to Spain as a free man. The socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, who has just been officially re-elected, has granted an amnesty to Puigdemont and hundreds of others facing fines and imprisonment for their part in that push for independence. Sánchez had previously promised the

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron has lost all credibility on Israel-Palestine

It has been a bruising few days for Emmanuel Macron. It began last Friday when he gave an interview to the BBC at the Élysée palace at the conclusion of a peace forum in Paris. In unusually forthright rhetoric, the president said there was ‘no justification’ for Israel’s bombing of Gaza, which was killing ‘these babies, these ladies, these old people’. He added: ‘There is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop.’ He also reiterated a call for a ceasefire in Gaza.   Macron’s words drew a swift and sharp response from Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the president’s focus should be on

Oscar Edmondson

Should Starmer worry about the ceasefire rebellion?

13 min listen

Fifty-six Labour MPs rebelled last night and voted for an SNP amendment calling for a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza. Keir Starmer had ordered his party to abstain on the vote, and said afterwards that Israel had suffered ‘its worst terrorist attack in a single day’ on 7 October, and that ‘no government would allow the capability and intent to repeat such an attack to go unchallenged’. Is Starmer’s authority now under threat? Oscar Edmondson speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

What the ceasefire vote means for the future of the Labour party

It’s a little too easy to dismiss the huge Labour rebellion on the Israel-Hamas war last night as ‘virtue signalling’. No one can deny that politicians were striking poses. A party, not in government, tearing itself apart about a conflict that does not involve the UK, over policy recommendations which all the combatants will ignore, in the unlikely event that they care enough about the British Labour party to even notice the vote in the first place.  In an interview that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas member, praised the massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7, and vowed that his

Ian Williams Ian Williams

Power shifts at the Biden-Xi summit

Perhaps the most important achievement of the summit between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden was that it was held at all. Expectations were set low and were duly met – assuming the modest agreements are carried through. There was little progress on issues that have pushed relations to the lowest point in four decades, and Xi still remains a ‘dictator’ in the eyes of the American president. Asked if he still held that view at the end of a carefully choreographed solo news conference, at which only four questions were allowed, Biden said, ‘Look, he is. He’s a dictator in the sense that he runs a country that’s a communist

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: James Cleverly denies slating Rishi’s Rwanda plan

The Tory party is still reeling from the Supreme Court’s ruling against the Rwanda migrant plan. Following Suella Braverman’s departure, it now falls to the new Home Secretary James Cleverly to help Rishi Sunak find a way through the mess and pacify the party’s grumblings. But it seems that Cleverly may be, er, starting on the back foot. Yesterday in the Commons, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper claimed that Cleverly never believed in the scheme and ‘may even on occasion have privately called it “batshit”’. As luck would have it, Cleverly was on the morning broadcast round this morning. On BBC Breakfast he was quizzed on the comment by the

Matthew Lynn

Biden and Xi’s meeting is a boost to the global economy

At least there will be some pandas. At his summit with President Biden this week, China’s President Xi pledged to send more cuddly bears to the US, the traditional Chinese way of cementing good relations with other countries. More importantly, there was a significant easing of tensions between the two largest economies in the world. Military communications will resume, reducing the chances of a catastrophic miscalculation between the two nations, controls on narcotics will be tightened up, and there will be a resumption of high-level diplomatic contacts. It remains to be seen if that sticks. But if it does, one point is surely clear. That could yield a huge ‘peace

Steerpike Steerpike

Lee Anderson defends Sunak

There’s a lot of grumbling right now about Rishi Sunak on the right. So it must have been to the Prime Minister’s relief that there’s at least one no-nonsense Tory he can always depend on. Step forward Lee Anderson, the party’s deputy chairman and stalwart member of the Common Sense Group. Just a few hours after the PM’s spokesman defended Anderson’s comments about defying the Rwanda court judgement, the former miner repaid the favour, going on GB News to quash rumours that he is thinking of resigning. He told Patrick Christys that that talk of a leadership election is ‘absolute nonsense’, saying: Let me just tell you now, here on

Cristina Odone

How the Tories failed stay-at-home mums

We know that Westminster politicians do not always listen to ordinary voters. But there are few issues on which our representatives are more impervious to entreaties from their electorate than childcare. Too many politicians look on children as the impish impediment to both parents being in paid employment, the obstacles to Mum and Dad paying into Treasury coffers through taxes and national insurance contributions. Parents look on children as their life’s work. There is a particular cohort for whom this clash of priorities has been uniquely painful: parents who stay home to raise their own children. Conservative governments always talk of choice; but this government’s childcare policy robs these mothers

Sean Rayment

It’s time Israel stopped playing by Hamas’s rules in Gaza

For Israel, the war in Gaza is a zero sum game. Israel must win and Hamas must lose. Nothing but total victory over Hamas after the appalling terrorist attacks which left over 1,400 Israelis dead, hundreds injured and over 200 civilians taken hostage, will suffice. But how is victory going to be defined and what is Israel’s end game? When the dust of war finally settles what does Israel want Gaza to look like? An empty, lifeless, bomb-cratered ruin or a self-governing entity, secure within its own borders and no longer a threat to Israel? Unless Israel has a clear strategic aim, its troops risk becoming trapped inside Gaza, possibly

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The 2024 veep show has already started

Vice presidents are meant to be dependable – and in a funny way Kamala Harris is exactly that. Joe Biden knows that, no matter how bad his poll numbers, hers will be worse: she’s the most unpopular vice president since polling began, according to one recent survey. Biden can afford to be pitifully vague in public partly because she is so painfully annoying. He loses his thread; she loses the plot.  That’s one of the reasons why, for all the alarm in Washington circles about the Commander-in-Chief’s ‘job performance’ and the distinct possibility that he might lose to Donald Trump next year, the Biden-Harris ticket seems locked in place for

Wednesday

James Heale James Heale

Mass Labour rebellion over Gaza vote

With no end to the war in sight, expect the theme over Labour splits on Israel to be a constant one Ten of Sir Keir Starmer’s frontbenchers have tonight left their posts after backing an SNP motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Jess Phillips, Afzal Khan, Paula Barker and Yasmin Qureshi were among 56 Labour MPs who defied their party’s whips to abstain tonight. Sarah Owen, Andy Slaughter, Naz Shah and Rachel Hopkins also left their briefs, as did two parliamentary private secretaries: Dan Carden and Mary Foy. They follow Imran Hussain’s departure last week in protest at Labour’s unwillingness to differ from the government in his support for

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Sunak and Suella clash over Rwanda plan B

For a brief moment this morning it looked as though Rishi Sunak had finally had some good luck. Inflation figures, which came out today, show that the government has met its pledge to halve inflation this year as the rate fell to a two-year low of 4.6 per cent. But that’s about where the good news stops for Sunak. Just a few hours later, the Prime Minister and his government were dealt a significant blow when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that his Rwanda scheme is unlawful. As Alexander Horne explains on Coffee House, the Supreme Court upheld a previous decision from the Court of Appeal that the policy was unlawful. It

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs: Sunak struggles to defend David Cameron

The House of Lords is like a bag of doughnuts in the lap of a traffic policeman. There’s always room for one more. The newest peer, David Cameron, was the subject of much amused scorn at PMQs. Rishi Sunak wasn’t prepared for an obvious query about his new Foreign Secretary: what is Dave’s greatest feat on the international stage? Kevin Brennan, of Labour, put this question, and he asked Rishi to name a specific achievement. ‘Many, many,’ said Rishi, floundering in shallow waters. In search of a highlight from Dave’s CV, he said that he ‘hosted one of the most successful G8 summits of recent times.’ Rishi didn’t enlarge. Several

Andrew Tettenborn

The Rwanda judgment was not a foregone conclusion

This morning, the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s judgment on the Rwanda plan and declared that the scheme is unlawful. The Court of Appeal had said that the principle of sending asylum seekers to foreign countries was unexceptionable. But the courts had to decide if Rwanda was likely to be a safe country which would not mistreat asylum seekers, or send them on to third countries where they would face mistreatment. It determined that Rwanda was not safe. The Supreme Court’s decision was, broadly, that the Court of Appeal had been right to take that line, and that the justices agreed with it.  This decision is not particularly

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Back to the future: Sunak’s big gamble

On Remembrance Sunday, former prime ministers are given ceremonial roles. When everyone assembled last weekend, it was a reminder of the recent mayhem within the Tory party. Labour’s 13-year era seemed neat by comparison: Tony Blair, then Gordon Brown. The Tories’ 13 years in power were represented by a more chaotic line-up: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak. If Tory rebels have their way, they might even try to squeeze someone else in before time runs out. ‘I was the future, once,’ the now Lord Cameron said on his last day in office in July 2016. He did himself a disservice: he is the future once