All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The Withdrawal Bill that has been published is pretty dull stuff – even by my standards. There are nonetheless rather frantic efforts to pretend it is in any way terrible. It isn’t. For one reason and one reason only. Like the 1972 Act, all the Bill does is bring the Withdrawal Agreement into UK law.
At the start of the year, the Brexit party didn’t exist. When it roared to success a few months later in the European parliamentary elections, much was made of how unlike a normal party it was. Nigel Farage was fond of telling audiences that his MEPs included Tories and former members of the Revolutionary Communist
Rumours of the Prime Minister’s death in a ditch have been greatly exaggerated. Parliament’s rejection of the Government’s programme motion for its withdrawal agreement bill makes it all but impossible for Boris Johnson to extricate the UK from the EU by 31 October as promised. It is an obvious defeat for a PM who got
Boris Johnson’s bid to fast track his Brexit bill through Parliament has been defeated in the Commons. These are the nine ex-Tory independent MPs who voted against the Government: Guto Bebb; Ken Clarke; Justine Greening; Dominic Grieve; Philip Hammond; Richard Harrington; Anne Milton; Antoinette Sandbach; Rory Stewart And these are the five Labour MPs who
Will the UK leave the EU on the 31 October? Barring the highly unlikely event of the EU refusing an extension, the answer to that question is no. This evening, MPs voted against the government’s programme motion to push the Withdrawal Agreement Bill through the Commons at breakneck speed – at 308 to 322. This means
Boris Johnson has suffered defeat in a key Commons vote after MPs voted down his bid to fast track his Brexit bill through Parliament. MPs voted 322 to 308 not to push the legislation through Parliament in three days. The Prime Minister’s bill initially cleared its first hurdle in the Commons after MPs backed the withdrawal bill.
‘A general election will solve nothing,’ Anna Soubry has just told the Commons. But it seems not all of her parliamentary colleagues agree. Labour MP John Mann responded to Soubry by repeatedly yelling out: ‘It will get rid of you’ It’s safe to say Soubry was not impressed: ‘Can I just say actually, I don’t
David Lammy has said Boris Johnson’s bid to fast track his Brexit bill through Parliament means MPs won’t have enough time to scrutinise it properly. Lammy said ‘giving MPs so little time to scrutinise one of the most consequential pieces of legislation we’ll vote on is as transparent as it is cynical’. But while fellow
The key Brexit vote tonight is on the programme motion. The sense is that the government has the votes to carry the second reading. But that wouldn’t guarantee the UK leaving on 31 October, as the committee and report stages could take weeks and see a slew of amendment added to the bill. If Boris Johnson
The debate on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill is as noisy as you might expect, given how high emotions are on both sides. What is less predictable is whether MPs will be debating the legislation tomorrow, or whether the government will pull the bill after losing its programme motion vote tonight. It’s not clear where the
It must feel pretty lonely being Caroline Flint right now. The Labour MP has made herself unpopular with her comrades by backing Boris Johnson’s deal to leave the EU. Flint campaigned for Remain but accepts that her Don Valley constituency voted 68 per cent Leave. In the former mining towns of her South Yorkshire seat,
Allow me to introduce Dominic Slack-Oxley. Never heard of him, I hear you cry. Oh but you have. You hear from him every time you pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV news. Slack-Oxley is everywhere. More than Facebook or Vladimir Putin, he is the most reliable source of fake news in Britain.
A second referendum would be a political abomination. And it’s about time more of us said so. We need to get real about what a second referendum would mean. If we have another referendum in which Remain is an option on the ballot paper, it will be one of the few times in the history
Parliament Square was rammed by lunchtime on Saturday. Whistles tooted. Blue flags fluttered in the breeze. An entrepreneur outside Westminster tube station was selling ‘Dump on Trump’ loo paper for £3 a roll. Many Remainers were draped in EU flags. Others wore floppy azure berets bejazzled with golden stars. A vegetarian chef doled out plates of
Boris Johnson has been criticised for sending the European Union a letter conveying his real opinion about a Brexit extension along with a photocopy of the letter Parliament dictated and forced him to send. Yet the Prime Minister was entirely justified – and right – in doing so. Parliament certainly can – and should –
The important vote today will be on the timetable, or programme motion, for the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, the law that must pass before Brexit. The government wants it on the statute book by 31 October. Labour will try to humiliate the PM by forcing a delay. One minister tells me that the programme motion is
Appropriately, given the length of time it has taken politicians of all colours to continue putting off taking any sort of decision on Brexit, the government has decided to try to break the legislative speed record this week by rushing through the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in just a few days. Leader of the House Jacob
It was hardly a surprise that this afternoon John Bercow ruled out allowing the government to bring back its meaningful vote on Brexit. Still less of a surprise that this ruling took up nearly an hour in the Commons of points of order from MPs on all sides making points which changed the minds of
Short of a miracle, abortion will become legal in Northern Ireland tomorrow. It’s a result of a shabby legislative deal back in July, when English parliamentarians amended the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) bill, to override the entire principle of devolution. In other words, the abortion laws of the north of Ireland will be annulled at the say-so
Is this the week Boris Johnson passes his Brexit deal? As ever with Brexit, there is a chance that what is meant to be a decisive week in terms of the UK’s exit from the European Union ends up leading to more delay and confusion. However, whatever happens in the coming days, senior Tories are
The purpose of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill is to put the Withdrawal Agreement into UK domestic law. Nothing that MPs add to it can change the text of what the UK and the EU agreed last week. For this reason it is wrong, whatever the merits of it, to try and add a customs union
After a remarkable turnaround, Boris Johnson succeeded in brokering a Brexit deal with the European Union last week. Now, he has the difficult task of navigating it through the House of Commons. On Saturday, Boris Johnson pulled a vote on his deal, after MPs backed Oliver Letwin’s amendment, which forced the government to ask for
From the moment the popular American fried chicken vendor Chick-fil-A opened its inaugural UK branch in Reading, gay rights activists started mobbing it with complaints and calls for it to close. Why? Well according to Reading Pride who led the campaign, the food outlet’s charitable donations to ‘anti-LGBT’ organisations such as The Fellowship of Christian Athletes and,
So after Tom Bradby’s documentary on Harry and Meghan: An African Journey last night, what are people talking about? The mines issue, 22 years after Diana walked through a minefield in Angola? Violence against women and girls in South Africa, as evident in the training that girls get to help them fend off attacks, which
Back in 2016, thousands of Brits thought they’d struck gold. Word was spreading through WhatsApp and Facebook groups about an exciting new crypto-currency called OneCoin. It was rumoured to be the next Bitcoin – that strange digital currency that had been shooting up in value and minting millionaires. OneCoin’s founder, a Bulgarian-German businesswoman called Dr Ruja Ignatova had impeccable credentials – a degree from
I recently heard the alarming rumour that Mr Speaker Bercow still has it in his power (a power he used on an earlier occasion) to duck out of his promise to retire. He said on 9 September that he would step down on 31 October, but apparently he may decide at the last minute that his
For the third time, the UK government finds itself at odds with its allies, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP chose to vote against Boris Johnson’s deal on Saturday by supporting the Letwin amendment. They will surely do so again when the meaningful vote is finally taken this week. But this time there is
What happened in Brexit this weekend? Here is the story in one sentence. Boris Johnson asked the EU to extend UK membership, something he said he would never do. The rest is spin. How many times did Boris Johnson promise not to seek an extension of the UK membership of the EU? More than I
Michael Gove – We are going to leave by October 31st The so-called ‘Super Saturday’ session of Parliament yesterday did not quite go as the government had hoped. After an amendment tabled by the now independent MP Oliver Letwin was passed, the government delayed a vote on its new withdrawal deal until it could be
For the latest competition you were invited to step into the shoes of well-known poets and give their reflections on the Apollo 11 moon landing, 50 years on. Cath Nichols’s enjoyable entry looked back on the lot of the Apollo wives through Wendy Cope’s acerbic eye. Nick MacKinnon was also an accomplished Cope impersonator: Bloody
Student politics these days is frequently self-parodying. The Gandhi Must Fall campaign at Manchester university is a perfect case study. Manchester city council has approved plans for a nine-foot statue of Mahatma Gandhi outside Manchester Cathedral. The idea is to promote peace in the wake of the horrific Manchester Arena attack. Who could possibly object
Boris Johnson has written a (signed) letter to the EU saying that a Brexit delay ‘would damage the interests of the UK and our EU partners’. To comply with the Benn Act, the Prime Minister has also sent an (unsigned) letter formally requesting a Brexit extension. Here is the full text of both letters: 10
The Prime Minister will today send, but not sign, a letter requesting a Brexit delay till January 31 2020, and will simultaneously tell EU leaders that Parliament wants the delay, not him or his government. This will put him in all-out conflict with MPs, who have ordered him to ask EU leaders for a three-month Brexit