Politics

Boris Johnson’s internal market bill is back in the House of Lords next week, but will peers let it through?  The bill gives the government an express power (a written one in a statute) to break an international treaty. The Lords do not like that the government might break a specific treaty. Where you stand on those are political, not legal questions — so not for a lawyer like me to answer. But what is for law, is to firstly recognise (whether peers like it or not) that the power to break a treaty, does exist. Think of it like a physical thing; it is in our constitution and we’ve lost track of

Grantham in Lincolnshire has an interesting history. Newton went to school there. Turner produced several paintings of local scenes. During the last war, the town, set in flat countryside ideal for airfields, made a significant contribution to the bombing of Nazi Germany. In private, the most famous person ever to be born in the town might well have said: ‘jolly good thing too.’ Margaret Thatcher never found it easy to forgive what happened during the war. A lot of people still do not find it easy to forgive her. Some locals are now complaining about a proposal to add laurels to their town by erecting a statue to this greatest

Sophy Ridge was joined this morning by the Environment Secretary George Eustice. The first item on the agenda was the reconvening of post-Brexit trade talks after negotiators failed to reach an agreement last week. Eustice confirmed that EU demands on access to British coastal waters and on state aid were still the key barriers to a deal: GE: These [talks] are… in a very difficult position, there’s no point denying that… There was some hope early last week… at one point it looked like there might be a breakthrough… We’re going to continue to work on these negotiations until there’s no point in doing so any further. ‘We will see’

That France was the country to throw a grenade threatening to blow up the UK-EU trade talks just as they were about to pass the finish line, does not come as a surprise to seasoned euro-watchers. No other EU member would so brazenly promote its own domestic self-interest at the cost to other EU members such as Germany and Ireland. To the British it has echoes of de Gaulle saying ‘non’, when vetoing the UK’s first attempts to join the Common Market. Many of the EU’s problems and (in my view) the ultimate reason Brexit happened, is down to a fundamental cause that is little remarked on in the UK.

It was always going to be the case that a Brexit deal would require an intervention from Boris Johnson and the Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. But today’s conversation between the pair is going to have to do more work than either side would have liked. Rather than nudging a deal over the line, this phone call is going to have to give the talks a proper shove. Von der Leyen has the more difficult task today. Johnson is speaking on his own behalf, von der Leyen is speaking for 27 governments, including one – France – that is publicly threatening to veto any deal it doesn’t like. But