Cop’s pledge to move away from fossil fuels is a farce

So, a deal has been reached. The world has agreed on what Cop 28 president Sultan al-Jaber has called a ‘robust action to keep 1.5 Celsius in reach’. The world is to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels.

And meanwhile, back in the real world? If the world really had just made a meaningful commitment to end the use of fossil fuels, you might have expected shares in oil companies to have crashed this morning. But have they heck. Shell, BP, all are unmoved. It is expansionary business as usual. The UAE has invested $150 billion (£120 billion) to increase oil production by half to five million barrels a day by 2027. In the US, oil and gas production reached a new record last year. Even coal production was up 2 per cent. There is enough new gas production in the pipeline to increase output from 11.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day to over 20 billion cubic feet. We can be very thankful for that in Europe – it is us, feeling the absence of Russian gas, who are the main customers. The US agreed to spend a piffling £20 million of aid money on poor countries. The US can’t be blamed for seeking energy security, but can anyone say what was the real difference between having the Biden administration at this conference and having a Trump administration snub it?

As for China, it has built 182 new coal-fired power plants in the past two and a half years – since president Xi Jinping announced he was setting his country a target to reach Net Zero by 2060, comfortably beyond his own reign, in spite of his moves to guarantee himself lifetime presidency. Brazil, which was pressing right up until the last day for Cop 28 to agree to ‘phase out’ fossil fuels rather than simply transition away from them? It plans to expand oil production in its offshore fields to become the world’s fourth largest producer by 2030. Canada, which joined Brazil in demanding a ‘phase out’? It has increased oil production by 375,000 barrels per day over the past two years.

Never mind Cop 28 and its 98,000 gas-guzzling, private jet-using delegates – never has there been such a bonanza in fossil fuels. If this is supposed to be the ‘beginning of the end’ for fossil fuels, as the EU’s climate envoy put it, it is a mighty strange one.

Those who have been carefully watching proceedings over the past couple of weeks may have noticed a subtle difference between the language being used by different countries. While activists and numerous groups were certain they were demanding a phase out of all fossil fuels, US climate envoy John Kerry was talking only about ‘unabated’ fossil fuels. Britain, too, was using this language. The difference is that the US position allows for carbon capture and storage – which could allow for the burning of fossil fuels with no, or with very low, emissions. There is, though, a very big question over this strategy: who is going to pay for carbon capture, if indeed it can succeed as a commercial technology at all? We have had carbon capture since the 1970s – when ironically it was devised by the oil and gas industry as a means of forcing more fossil fuels out of declining wells. But if it is going to be used without that incentive, someone is going to have to pay – as well as finding the room to store all the carbon. Moreover, it is one thing to capture the carbon from the chimney of a gas-fired power stations, quite another to try to capture it from the exhaust of a jet plane.

Don’t, though, be fooled by grand words of transitioning away from fossil fuels. There is scant sign that the world intends to live up to its grand words.    

Is Britain’s economy ‘going backwards’?

Has the UK economy come to a standstill? This morning we learn that the economy contracted by 0.3 per cent in October, far worse than the zero per cent change to GDP that was expected by economists. Furthermore, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveals there was no overall growth in the three months to October.

These figures are even more disappointing after the economy grew by 0.2 per cent in September, as they are the first indication that growth could flatline in the final quarter of the year. Health and social activities did increase – rising by 0.4 per cent, as there were fewer strikes in October than September and fewer appointments rescheduled –  but services output, production output and the construction sector all took a hit (contracting 0.2 per cent, 0.8 per cent and 0.5 per cent, respectively). The biggest fall came in the information and communication sector – a contraction of 1.7 per cent – with falls in output from ‘computer programming, consultancy and related activities, as well as motion picture, video and TV production.’

The ONS points to ‘wet weather’ as ‘anecdotal evidence’ to explain October’s figures. But the main culprit is far more likely to be (relatively) high interest rates, which seemed to reach their peak in August and have been held at 5.25 per cent since. This is, of course, what higher rates are designed to do: take some heat out of the economy, to help get inflation back down to target. But it’s a delicate balance. Get rates right and price hikes will slow, get it wrong and you risk tipping the economy into recession. That rate hikes can take months to work their way into the system makes things even trickier: hikes are often not felt by businesses and consumers for some time. October’s slowdown is likely to reflect decisions made many months previously by the Bank of England, which means by the time evidence emerges that economic activity is being weighed down too heavily, it’s often too late.

Whispers of recession have started again this morning. Capital Economics says that October’s data could be the sign of ‘the mildest of mild recessions’ and could ‘nudge the Bank of England a little close to cutting interest rates,’ although the forecaster doesn’t think this will happen as quickly as tomorrow, when we get another bank rate update from the Monetary Policy Committee. 

What is far more clear, however, is that the UK economy isn’t picking up speed heading into the new year – a nod to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s downward revision to 2024 growth figures (which now estimate that the economy will only grow by 0.7 per cent). Labour are capitalising fast on this morning’s numbers, with shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves declaring the economy is ‘going backwards’ in the wake of the October data.

Of course very few definitive claims can be made on one set of monthly data, but the bigger trends are not looking good, not least because the economy only managed to just stay on the right side of recession this year. Furthermore, it remains difficult for Tory MPs to counter such claims from Labour when growth numbers remain so weak. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is describing this morning’s news as a necessary condition of getting inflation under control: that it’s ‘inevitable GDP will be subdued’ in that battle to control price spirals. He’s got a point, but the fact that it’s taken the UK a longer time than its counterparts to get inflation under control has meant a prolonged period of stagnant growth – and it’s one that Britain doesn’t appear to be escaping from anytime soon.

Why isn’t Biden being straight with Zelensky?

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington a year ago was a love-fest, characterised by standing ovations from American politicians, lavish praise from president Biden and a commitment to keep the aid flowing. His visit this week, however, occurred in a much different atmosphere.

The politics of Ukraine aid have changed, with a growing number of Republican lawmakers wondering whether sending more taxpayer dollars to underwrite a stalemate is a wise course of action. While Ukraine’s cause has received a better hearing in the senate, Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, is intent on using the Biden administration’s $106 billion (£85 billion) national security supplemental request (more than half of which is earmarked for Ukraine) to press for tougher immigration laws. The frontline in Ukraine has barely moved in places over the last year – or, where it has moved, the advancements have been so marginal as to be practically meaningless in the grand scheme of things. 

Zelensky understood he had a steep hill to climb. His two days in the US capital consisted of a dizzying number of meetings. On 11 December, he delivered a speech to the National Defense university essentially making his case that Ukraine was fighting for all the world’s democracies. US lawmakers, Zelensky argued, are only helping Russian president Vladimir Putin by dillydallying. ‘If there’s anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill,’ the Ukrainian president remarked, ‘it’s just Putin and his sick clique.’ It was an interesting public relations strategy, akin to shaming the very legislators that have already doled out more than $100 billion (£80 billion) in US taxpayer assistance for Kyiv’s war effort. 

The bulk of Zelensky’s time was spent on Pennsylvania Avenue. His first stop was Capitol Hill, where he briefed senators on the state of the war, Ukraine’s strategy for winning it, and the weapons systems required to make that strategy a success. He was escorted by the top Democrat and Republican in the chamber, as if to signal to Putin that Ukraine still had bipartisan support. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer emerged from the meeting to tell reporters that Zelensky ‘needs the aid quickly’ if the Ukrainians have any chance of winning the war. If not, the Russians could begin to see success again and the Ukrainian army will have adopt the tactics of an insurgency.

Keeping the cheques rolling, of course, is easier said than done. If Zelensky sought to convince Republican senators to separate Ukraine aid from Washington’s domestic immigration debate, he failed to move the needle. ‘We definitely want to help them,’ senator Dan Sullivan said, referring to Zelensky. ‘There’s no doubt. We just have to have a serious border deal. We’re not budging on it.’

The Republican leadership in the house of representatives is even more insistent on the matter. Speaking before Zelensky’s session in Congress, house speaker Mike Johnson repeated his position: if the White House wants to help Ukraine with tens of billions of additional dollars, it must do something to straighten out the mess on America’s southern border. Johnson’s message didn’t change after meeting Zelensky: ‘Our first condition on any national security supplemental spending package is about our own national security first.’

These are ominous words for Zelensky. a man with a ton of star power and goodwill left in the tank. The last thing he wanted was to be pushed into the middle of a decades-long tug-of-war over immigration, the third-rail of American politics. Alas, that is where he has ended up through no fault of his own.

On the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House remains all-in. President Biden, secretary of state Antony Blinken and defense secretary Lloyd Austin continue to whisper sweet-nothings into the ears of Ukrainian officials in public about the US supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes. Biden made the point for the umpteenth time and tried to buck up Zelensky’s mood, telling him not to lose hope no matter how dire the situation may seem. 

Yet as counterintuitive as it may appear, the boasting does Ukraine a disservice, particularly if it’s not accompanied by some tough, clear, honest talk behind closed doors about where the war is heading, as well as America’s capacity to sustain Kyiv’s defense efforts. In public, Biden and his national security staff want to project strength, resiliency and confidence: strength to teach adversaries worldwide a lesson, resolve to outlast Putin’s war of attrition and confidence that Ukraine will recapture every inch of land from the Russian invaders. 

That’s all well and good. It sounds great in front of the cameras and demonstrates leadership as the election campaign season approaches. But in the real world, policymakers can’t engage in wishful thinking or base their policies on the hope that something they can’t control will bail them out. Biden may be the world’s most powerful man, but he doesn’t control the US Congress and he doesn’t control the purse strings. Biden can’t tell Zelensky then with any degree of assurance that Washington will indeed support the Ukrainian war effort for as long as it takes.

Some within Zelensky’s orbit are still working on the assumption that US aid will continue well into the future and that congress will, sooner or later, pass another round of war funding. But for Ukraine’s own sake, US officials ought to stop the happy talk and start embracing the reality staring them in the face. Ukraine, above all, deserves honesty from the United States, and Zelensky’s latest visit to White House was a golden opportunity to deliver it.

Rishi Sunak will never stop the boats

Do not let the relatively comfortable margin of victory for the Rwanda Bill’s second reading fool you: we have now moved squarely into the ‘third Brexit’ stage of British politics.

The first British exit from looming European control over key policy levers came when eurosceptics beat off a plot to take the country into the single currency. The second Brexit, obviously, was actual Brexit, when we voted to ‘take back control’ of our laws and especially our borders by leaving the EU and ending free movement obligations. 

During each of these two mighty and protracted struggles, both of which almost tore the Tory party apart, those resisting the movement of sovereignty away from the nation state and into supra-national European institutions were depicted as jingoistic headbangers. But on each occasion the headbangers won in the court of public opinion.

Round three concerns a now fully-fledged campaign to take back control over the growing menace of irregular migration, not just from the European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg, but from the United Nations too, which has also sought to impose obligations on destination countries that are unsustainable in the modern world. 

And, once again, the Conservative party is attempting to straddle an unbridgeable divide. Whereas Labour and the Lib Dems are united behind undertakings made under ‘international law’ and Nigel Farage’s Reform Party is united behind restoring national sovereignty, the Tories seek to have a foot in both camps. Hence it was that Home Secretary James Cleverly declared that the Safety of Rwanda Bill was ‘pushing the edge of the envelope’ of international law in respect of limiting the rights of illegal immigrants to challenge removal to the central African country. He was asking MPs to believe that the government had found a way to reassert national control while not breaching onerous international obligations.

During the Brexit years, it was often declared by the smart people in the Tory party that Brexiteers were seeking ‘unicorns’ – fantastical non-existent creatures – by wanting, for example, to be outside the single market and the customs union and yet to still have liberal trading arrangements with European markets. 

This time round it is the Tory smart tendency, embodied in the slender frame of Rishi Sunak, that is chasing unicorns. It is doing so by thinking it can impose standard removal of irregular migrants to third countries while remaining a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights and under the jurisdiction of its aggressively expansionist supervisory court.

Sunak declared as long ago as January that he would do ‘whatever it takes’ to stop the boats. How he must wish he had set out an ambition simply to reduce them, as he did with the rate of inflation or the size of the national debt. Then he could be claiming his wind-assisted 2023 result (a 33 per cent reduction) as a qualified victory. But as Suella Braverman reminded us all in her Commons personal statement, reducing the numbers is not the same as ‘stopping the boats’. In that statement, Braverman also openly declared her ambition to get Britain out of the European Convention.

Yesterday the former immigration minister Robert Jenrick also lined up in the national sovereignty corner, declaring that he would always put the interests of the British people above the nebulous concept of international law. Jenrick eloquently explained why the Rwanda Bill will not work. The rights of individual appeal it preserves, even narrowly drawn, will be used by claimants to delay their deportations. At some point one will hit on a winning sob story and that will become the standard template for others to use. The European Court will then lay down some more of its controversial ‘Rule 39’ judgments forbidding deportations and we will be back where we began: on the tarmac at RAF Boscombe Down watching planes going nowhere. And the idea of the UK government ignoring such rulings while the current Foreign Secretary, Justice Secretary and Attorney General (among others) sit around the cabinet table is for the birds.

The Safety of Rwanda Bill is this parliament’s equivalent of Theresa May’s Chequers deal. The Bob Neill and Robert Buckland tendency of internationalist centrist Tories will not tolerate it being toughened any further. The pro-nation staters such as Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates will not put up with it as it is. When the legislation comes back for its third reading in January, these two contradictory political philosophies will once again be in full conflict. 

Should it somehow crawl onto the statute book it will not usher in a durable deterrent against small boat crossings and will therefore merely ratchet up public cynicism towards the Tory party still further. Keir Starmer has already pledged to scrap the Rwanda policy altogether if he becomes prime minister. There cannot be much doubt about that now. In the old days it was said that to govern is to choose, but under Sunak, as under May before him, to govern is to lose.

Ozempic has cured my alcoholism

Remember the lockdowns? I wish I didn’t, but I do. Especially that insanely grim third lockdown, the winter one, which went on and on and on and which bottomed out, for me, as I did my one allotted weekly walk along the Richmond riverside, in freezing horizontal drizzle. I made sure I had a thermos cup of mulled wine in my hand as I debated with my one permitted friend whether we were legally allowed to sit on a bench together. In the end, we decided best not and trudged further into the sleet.

I’ve learned many things from lockdowns, one of them is: that I am never locking down again. If they try it on, I am tooling up and the plod will have to prise that park bench from under my cold dead coccyx. Also, like many, I’ve learned that lockdowns make you fat.

This last point seems to be near universal. Lockdown lard is a definite Thing, some studies indicate that people gained, on average, about ten to fifteen pounds, as we mastered sourdough starters or spent hours realising that fish cookery is quite easy (sole meuniere, who knew?).

I thereafter learned that this extra lockdown poundage was hard to shift. Even as the pandemic drifted into the past, the chunk did not. During previous blob-outs, I’ve always been able to drop extra weight through a combination of manic fasting, gym, neat vodka, and going to places with boring food (Portugal). This time nothing worked. I fasted, I treadmilled, I knocked back shots instead of dinner, I ate sardines in Sagres. Nope. Still chubby.

And then I discovered Ozempic. I can’t remember when I first heard about it, possibly reading some hey-I’m-thin-again celeb column, possibly when I looked at Donald Trump climbing out of a helicopter and I thought, wait, he might be mad but he looks a stone lighter and ten years younger, Go Donald, and I did some googling and learned of Ozempic, a new wonder drug for weight loss. So I got online and I ordered my special epipen of slenderness and I jacked it in my abdomen – and waited.

And lo, it worked. In the early summer of 2023, I finally began to lose the pandemic pounds. The progress was slow but continuous. I stopped avoiding full-length mirrors. I noticed a hint of cheekbone. Even better, I didn’t have to try, my appetite was simply curtailed.

But of course, you know all this. You’ve already read a trillion articles about how Ozempic stops you wanting that second helping. I am here, like the Christmas angel, to bring you different but equally encouraging news. Ozempic also stops you boozing.

To understand how significant this is to me, I must first admit that I am a functional alcoholic. Totally functional but an alcoholic, nonetheless. Earlier this year, I proved this to my own satisfaction when my GP asked me about my alcohol intake and I decided, unlike every other drinker in history (including me, to that point) to be honest with the doc.

So I told her the truth. I drink between 100 and 150 units a week, i.e. a bottle of red a day, a few G&Ts, maybe move into the second bottle (it’s actually quite easily done if you are fiercely committed to pointless intoxication). And my doctor’s reaction? It is the first time I have genuinely seen someone nearly fall off a chair in surprise.

And now, on Ozempic, I am drinking less than half that. This still puts me about five trillion units over the government’s recommended alcohol intake of a tiny antique egg cup full of weakish Chardonnay per month, but hey. Baby steps. And it’s not like I’m even trying to rein in the booze (though I accept that I need to). As with eating, on these semaglutides I no longer have the desire to wolf down the Wolf Blass Shiraz. I still drink, but I have a pleasant glass, I have another glass, and then, miraculously, I stop. Entire hours can pass when I take a few sips. Entire half bottles can go undrunk and be left for the next day.

For me, this is unprecedented. It also means I am saving a lot of money (I like pricey wine, I only cited Wolf Blass for the repetition and alliteration): indeed I might be saving so much money on excellent Malbec the Ozempic is paying for itself. Which is no mean feat, as these drugs are so expensive they have practically doubled the GDP of Denmark (home of the highly profitable makers of Ozempic: Novo Nordisk Inc).

Nor am I alone in noticing a major decline in my boozing. There are now multiple anecdotal reports, and a few scientific studies, pointing to this phenomenon. Here’s an American article from August this year:

Doctors and patients have begun to notice a striking side effect of these drugs. They appear to reduce people’s craving for alcohol, nicotine and opioids. They may also reduce some types of compulsive behaviour, such as gambling and online shopping.

Clearly this is huge – if true. Something in these drugs seems to interrupt the dopamine reward cycle which leads to addictive behaviour, of any kind. And given that almost the entire world is addicted to something, from fatty food to smartphones to online poker to fentanyl, this could be a miracle from medical heaven. It will make the advent of semaglutides as significant and positive as the discovery of antibiotics. Maybe bigger.

At this point, it is traditional for Ozempic columns to introduce a word of warning. So: here’s a word of warning. These drugs are so new we don’t know the long-term consequences. They may give you an extra chance of thyroid cancer – or not (though for me the much more proximate likelihood of liver failure makes that fairly irrelevant).

There are also side effects. You occasionally burp, you get hints of nausea. I’ve noticed a small but definite diminishment in my libido. However, given that in these august pages I once admitted ‘to wanking myself into hospital’ due to habitual overuse of internet porn, that may again be the wonder drug interrupting the feedback loop of addiction.

So that’s the downside and it is a downside. Therefore I don’t intend to stay on semaglutides forever. But I am fervently hoping that I can carry on the better Ozempic habits, folding them into my life permanently. And in the meantime, I’m celebrating the fact that humanity might just have happened on one of the greatest pharmacological discoveries in history. And I’m celebrating it with a double espresso, no sugar.

I miss Christmas in the old East End

My family is from Canning Town in London’s East End. One thing’s for sure, we never curated Christmas, never had it with bells on and we looked forward to the next one the moment it was over. There were essential elements: winkles on Christmas Eve, with my dad rather solemnly getting out the winkle pins. Strange little molluscs, Winkles. You go through all that work ‘winkling’ them out of their shells, add some vinegar and pepper and then they’re gone, barely touching the side of your mouth.

Of course, there was always the traditional knees-up. The whole extended family formed a line in the living room, we whacked on the music and then we passed up and down, singing along, with knees going like the clappers. As a teenager, I nearly died when the knees-up was announced. But now? Now, I wish I could be part of one again.

There were uncles, aunts and friends of the family everywhere. The men generally sat together talking about what happened in the war, in the Suez campaign, in Korea and fretting about the state of the nation. And we boys sat close drinking it up and hoping to be soldiers ourselves someday. My mother and the women tended to be crammed into the kitchen and the laughter hinted that they were having more fun than the men.

Christmas Eve was the focus of the party. Front door open, everyone welcome. At some point, the union jacks would come out and we’d sing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. It wasn’t a kind of inward-looking nationalism. Everyone was welcome regardless of creed or birthplace. It was more a simple kind of gratitude for the country, not shallow because it came loaded with suffering and sacrifice. It was hard won.

Many of my father’s school friends had been killed when a bomb hit the school they were sheltering in. My father was lucky. He used to stay at home to look after his mum, who was deaf and couldn’t hear the bombs falling.

Christmas day was for family. Food and presents and then a whisky or two and a walk around the streets to clear the head and say hello to the neighbours. Never the Queen’s Speech. It used to cause arguments. And so to Boxing Day when it was always the men off to the football. As Boxing Day moved on, I’d feel that dread that we were heading back to ordinary life. My family weren’t flashy and despite limited schooling, they were sharp and clever. They never expected life to do them a favour.

I know people get funny about the commercialisation of Christmas and my evangelical friends lament that Jesus has somehow not got a mention. But that’s not a modern thing. Our Christmas was about family first. Yes, sometimes we might go to Midnight Mass, but not often.

Looking back on it now, as a priest, I think we got Christmas right. It was an open house – which is perhaps the greatest metaphor for the Christian faith. That and joy and singing and wonder. My Christmas now is still great. But it is politer, more well-ordered, more insular. Sometimes I dream about the Christmases of my youth. My grandfather played the piano in the local pub. My local is now a gastro pub with no sign of a piano. Instead they play Ed Sheeran.

Sunak wins the Rwanda vote – but the battle is far from over

The government has won Tuesday’s vote on the ‘Safety of Rwanda’ Bill comfortably at 313 votes to 269 against. This means Rishi Sunak has managed to pass his Bill at second reading after a day of negotiations with the various Tory tribes. Not a single Tory MP voted against the Bill. Thirty-eight conservative MPs abstained in total of which 29 Tory MPs abstained on principle. If the 29 had all voted against the Bill, this would have been enough to block it at second reading.

The result comes after various sceptic Conservative factions – including the European Research Group (ERG) and the New Conservatives – advised their members to abstain. The result will come as a relief to No. 10 following talk in the Conservative party that the vote could come down to the wire. Had the government lost at second reading, it would have been a devastating blow to Sunak’s authority, given that the last time a Bill from the government fell at a similar stage was 1986 under Thatcher on Sunday trading.

However, the problem for Sunak is that, while he has had the best result he could have hoped for today (and the margins are less tight than many MPs had predicted), his MPs plan to take the fight to the next stage. The ERG of eurosceptic Tory MPs has warned that they will vote down the Rwanda Bill in the New Year if they don’t get the changes they want to see. Now based on these numbers, a majority of the MPs choosing to abstain would need to choose to vote against – but it’s not impossible.

It means that in many ways today’s result puts off rather than solves a clash within the Tory party. When the Bill reaches committee stage, the ERG and the One Nation group could yet put down amendments to change the Bill. It then also needs to get through the House of Lords. Sunak has avoided a leadership crisis before Christmas – but his problems on the policy are far from over.

There’s no good option for Sunak over the Rwanda Bill

There is a lot more trouble to come on the Rwanda Bill, whatever happens tonight. When James Cleverly told MPs earlier that the emergency legislation complied with international law but was ‘very much pushing at the edge of the envelope’, he was trying to suggest that there was something for everyone. So far all the speeches in the debate on the second reading have suggested that there will be a lot of abstentions, with no Tory MP yet saying they will vote against. The five groups of traditional Tories have just said they ‘cannot support the bill tonight’ – which again is not an instruction to vote it down, and Mark Francois, who delivered the announcement, said they would be seeking changes later in the legislative process. The private chat in the party among those who are sceptical about the Bill is that they still think 20 MPs will rebel and vote against, but that there could be a large number of abstentions. But something for everyone won’t last, because MPs who give furious speeches, like Robert Jenrick, have only refrained from saying they will vote against because they want to improve the legislation. 

No. 10 underlined that an assurance about changes was being given to would-be rebels, with the Prime Minister’s spokesperson saying: ‘The Rwandan government’s position is in relation to the international law elements. There are other aspects of the Bill that don’t relate purely to that, so I’m not going to rule out considering any further suggestions that MPs may make or have made. Those conversations are ongoing.’ But it is the international law aspects that Jenrick and others want to change. And it is the international law aspects that One Nation MPs such as Robert Buckland and Bob Neil are saying they are basing their conditional support on. Which means that if the Bill does pass this second reading tonight, it will be with a delayed revolt on the horizon. 

Tory whips have been suggesting that at some stage, the Bill could become an issue that necessitates removing the whip from those who rebel. This threat never goes down well, but it also makes little sense to most MPs because it’s not clear which wing of the party this would apply to. In 2019, Boris Johnson stripped Tory MPs of the party whip if they refused to back Brexit. It was brutal but he did so to articulate what his party stood for in the general election. He could do that because he was clear on what he stood for. Tory MPs still aren’t clear which side their Prime Minister is actually on: he can’t remove the whip from both factions of the party.

Danny Kruger proves to be a thorn in Sunak’s side

Oh dear. For a while now, Danny Kruger has established himself as one of the more troublesome Tory MPs from No. 10’s perspective. The 2019 MP served as political secretary to Boris Johnson before entering parliament. Yet in recent months he has tended to adopt positions that cause Downing Street a headache. He helped found the ‘New Conservatives’ – a Tory caucus largely made up of 2019 intake MPs in red wall seats. While Kruger’s seat is very much in the blue wall category, he has warned repeatedly that Sunak must keep the 2019 election coalition of voters alive.

This morning, Kruger was one in a group of ‘New Conservatives’ to have breakfast with the Prime Minister as Sunak tried to convince them to back the Rwanda Bill. Alas for Sunak, the charm offensive failed when it came to Kruger. Along with fellow 2019-er Miriam Cates, he has penned a post-breakfast Telegraph op-ed saying the Rwanda bill will not let the UK ‘take back control’ (though according to Kruger’s former boss Boris Johnson that had happened back in 2019):

‘As MPs elected on a mandate to ‘Take Back Control’ we can’t vote for a Bill that fails to establish the superiority of our democratically-elected UK parliament over foreign courts. We sincerely hope the Government comes forward with amendments that will address the practical limitations of the Bill and the principle of parliamentary sovereignty. It is in the best interests of our country to resolve these issues once and for all.’

Now he has declared to the House: ‘I regret we have got an unsatisfactory Bill. I can’t undertake to support it tonight’.

Little wonder then the Prime Minister is calling back ministers from trips abroad in a bid to scrape through tonight…

The Tories created this Rwanda Bill mess

Climate change minister Graham Stuart is flying back to Britain from the UAE for a matter of hours so he can cast his vote tonight for the Safety of Rwanda Bill. It’s not a great look from the green perspective, and even worse from the political one. The government is so concerned about the numbers tonight that every vote must count. This includes flying one in.

Even the best case scenario for Rishi Sunak this evening is rife with problems (Katy Balls lays out all the possible outcomes here). If the Bill passes today, it will face more hurdles at the committee stage. Neither the right nor centre is particularly happy with the Bill, so any concession to one camp risks the support of the other. It’s a terrible dilemma the government finds itself in, but there’s no sympathy to be had. The chaos, on this occasion, is completely of the government’s own making. 

The Tory party is tearing itself apart over a cruel gimmick dreamed up by Boris Johnson, which has managed to become the central plank of the government’s immigration policy. Rishi Sunak may have had to pivot towards hard-line immigration policy last year to get his second leadership bid over the line, but he did not have to turn it into one of his five priorities, which made ‘stopping the boats’ synonymous with getting a flight to Rwanda in the air.

Ministers also didn’t need to spend half the year selling the plan to deport a total of 200 undocumented migrants as the silver-bullet solution to stop illegal migration – rhetoric which was rolled back a bit when it became more obvious the Supreme Court might not rule in their favour. But the biggest mistake has always been to deliberately classify refugees and economic migrants in the same category, then drafting up plans to handle these cases in the same way. It’s a point that was made repeatedly to ministers, often from within the tent, that was sidelined so as to not complicate the politics. That attempt to avoid complication has failed badly, as the politics is now about as messy as it can get, mired with Brexit comparison and the ‘psychodramas’ that played out at the end of Johnson’s premiership. 

The Supreme Court’s ruling suggested that the original legislation for deporting migrants would face a myriad of challenges on the domestic and international level. But it was crystal clear about the crux of its concerns: that genuine refugees could find themselves being sent back to dangerous countries – in breach of the practically universal principle that refoulement must be avoided at all costs.  

This is, and has always been, a problem that the government could solve if it wanted to: by creating legal pathways for refugees to claim asylum in the UK. If you are Ukrainian or Hong Kong Chinese, these pathways exist, but are virtually non-existent for most other nationalities. This means that, by nature of a non-existent system, refugees must show up in the UK to claim asylum – a move that, under the Rwandan scheme, would mean immediate deportation and no right to ever return to the UK. 

But rather than engage with the complexities and (no doubt difficult) choices that would be involved in looking into these routes, the government has simply insisted that legal pathways would come after the Rwanda scheme got off the ground. This timeline – flights first, legal pathways second – all but guaranteed the government’s Bill wouldn’t withstand the scrutiny of the courts.

Now the government finds itself in an even tricker position than it did when it inherited the Rwandan policy. Having spent the better part of a year insisting to colleagues that the ability for refugees to come to the UK legally was a secondary issue, it is not wholly surprising that there is a strong contingent on the Tory right now who don’t want any option for appeal. Meanwhile Tories in the centre are getting nervous that a Bill they might vote for could quickly lead to examples of some of the world’s most oppressed people being thrown into a new round of dangerous situations. 

After all, this is what happens when gimmicks turn into public policy. News broke this morning that an asylum seeker on the Bibby Stockholm barge, which is currently housing 300 migrants, died overnight. He is thought by others on board to have taken his own life. The question remains as to why migrants are on this boat in the first place: potentially deadly legionella bacteria was found on the Bibby Stockholm this summer and the asylum seekers were removed, only to be put back on board in October. It was used by the-then immigration minister Robert Jenrick as a talking point at Conservative Party Conference that same month, to show how seemingly serious the government is about cracking down on migration. 

Schemes designed to house, or deport, several hundred migrants maximum are highly unlikely to deter people who are already ready to risk their lives to pursue a better future. But they do run the high risk of creating new and unintended consequences, not to mention utter tragedies. Still, these show pieces remain the government’s priority. No surprise then, that it’s not going so well.

Robert Jenrick tears into the Rwanda Bill

Robert Jenrick has just given a furious speech against the Rwanda Bill in the Commons. It was a very well delivered speech, and highly persuasive. The former immigration minister not only took apart the flaws of the legislation as he saw them: he also explained why he had apparently adopted a much harder line while working in the Home Office. He said he had been to Dover to see ‘constituents whose homes have been broken into and whose lives have been ruined by illegal migrants’, and to Bournemouth, where an asylum seeker who posed as a child was convicted of murder.

Jenrick framed this Bill as being one of the greatest issues confronting MPs, not just today but in the 21st century. He dismissed the provision in the Bill designed to prevent the European Court of Human Rights deferring removals as ‘sophistry’. He argued: ‘We are being asked to vote for a provision which it would be illegal to use.’ As he said this, James Cleverly and his Home Office colleagues furrowed their brows and whispered to one another on the front bench.

Jenrick continued: ‘The public are watching us. They expect us to fix this problem. So why would we not put into this Bill the strongest protections at our disposal?’ He then argued that the legislation was not ‘bad’. ‘This is not a bad Bill. But it is not the best Bill. I want this Bill to work… Will it work? That is all the public care about. They don’t care about Rwanda as a scheme. They care about stopping the boats.’

At the end of a speech like that, you’d expect Jenrick to say he was voting against. But he didn’t. He closed by saying that ‘this Bill could be so much better. Let’s make it better.’ Many Tory MPs I’ve spoken to this morning expect there to be more abstentions than rebels against. Jenrick seemed to be suggesting he would either be voting for the Bill at second reading to improve it later, or abstaining.

Jenrick was the first backbencher to speak after the opening exchanges between James Cleverly and Yvette Cooper. Both of their speeches were lengthy because of the number of interventions from backbenchers. Cooper’s attack was one we have heard a great deal before: what a Tory mess, Labour would do this better, and so on. Cleverly was focused more on trying to reassure colleagues: he told John Baron that while the measures were ‘within the framework of international law’, they were ‘novel’ and ‘very much pushing at the edge of the envelope’. It was an unusual boast for a Home Secretary to make, but this is an unusual piece of legislation, which hasn’t managed to please anyone. Cleverly had to seesaw between the different camps within his party, clarifying to Jeremy Wright that the Bill wasn’t parliament merely declaring itself in compliance with international law, but about the safety of Rwanda.

What was striking about the majority of the Tory interventions was the number of MPs who wanted to stand up and ask whether Labour had a plan. There had clearly been an operation to get loyal backbenchers into the chamber to attack Labour, to avoid the internal Tory circular firing squad. But these positive Tory interventions were quickly superseded by Jenrick’s speech.

Net zero minister forced to fly back for crunch vote

It’s been a rather difficult week for Rishi Sunak, and it’s still only Tuesday. After being grilled by the Covid Inquiry yesterday, today Sunak is having to fend off a right-wing rebellion on his Rwanda plan. And now the government’s net zero minister Graham Stuart has been forced to fly back from Dubai’s COP28 for tonight’s vote before, er, flying back again afterwards. So much for those environmental commitments…

Stuart’s departure means that the UK now has no ministerial representation at the international conference as final talks commence. And Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has cottoned on to this somewhat sub-optimal set of events. She mocked the hasty return of the climate minister. ‘Well, I guess they can say at least one flight has taken off as a result of this legislation.’

Ba doom tish. You can watch the clip here:

Does a fifth of the population think we should still be in lockdown?

That shutting people away in their homes for weeks on end was going to have a bad effect on mental health was clear from the start of the pandemic, even if the Covid Inquiry doesn’t seem to think it a proper subject to cover the negative consequences of lockdowns. But a poll published this week by the organisation More in Common reveals just how debilitating an effect the pandemic continues to have on a remarkably large section of the population.

More in Common asked the following question: ‘Thinking of the current health situation in the UK would you support or oppose the government reintroducing each of the following Covid-19 restrictions at the current time?’ It then listed a series of interventions which were used during the pandemic. The results are astounding. Apparently 45 per cent of us still think we should continue to be forced to wear face masks on public transport, 29 per cent think nightclubs should still be closed, 23 per cent think the ‘rule of six’ should be re-introduced, limiting social gatherings, even outside, to a maximum of six people. As for pubs and restaurants, 20 per cent of people think they should still be closed. The same proportion think rules should be reintroduced: ‘Only allowing people to leave their homes for essential shopping, 60 minutes of exercise, and work.’

In other words, two years after almost all of us had received two, if not three, Covid vaccinations, and long after life for many of us has returned fully to normal, a fifth of the population think that we should still be in full lockdown. Even more remarkably, it was young adults – those aged between 25 and 40, whose chances of succumbing to Covid were never more than minimal – who are most in favour of continued lockdown: 28 per cent of those are in favour, compared with 14 per cent of the over-75s.

There are various possible reasons for this. Firstly, people might have misinterpreted the question and thought they were being asked what should happen in the event of a new pandemic. Secondly, formerly furloughed employees may be fondly remembering the days when they didn’t have to go to work. Thirdly – and I feel more likely – there may be large numbers of people who have been traumatised by Covid in the same way that they have been traumatised by climate change.

There is a very serious consequence to using fear as a means for governments to message the public: it generates hysteria. All those exaggerated graphs, all those adverts telling us to look NHS workers in the eye and tell them we never broke the rules, they have a lasting consequence. They have generated a breed of Morlocks who, long after the danger has passed, continue to be too scared to surface. This poll might go some way to explain the numbers of people who have disappeared from the workplace, and explain why many hospitality and arts venues are still struggling to survive. But above all, what have we done to people’s mental health by making them think that only permanent lockdown can save us?

The official Covid Inquiry might not want to address this, but the rest of us certainly should be discussing it.    

Turkey’s shameful referee attack was waiting to happen

All football matches in Turkey have been suspended after a club president invaded the pitch and punched a referee in the face. The ugly and violent assault took place at the end of a game between Ankaragucu and Caykur Rizespor, which ended in a 1-1 draw. Faruk Koca, the Ankaragucu president ran up to the referee, Halil Umut Meler, and struck him in the face. Meler fell to the ground, only to be kicked by other people while he tried to protect himself. The referee had to be led to safety surrounded by a cordon of police officers. He is now recovering in hospital after sustaining a facial fracture.

Koca and two other people have been arrested for ‘injuring a public official’. Koca was later quoted by a local news agency as telling investigators: ‘This incident developed due to the wrong decisions and provocative behaviour of the referee. My aim was to react verbally to the referee and spit in his face.’ That last sentence says it all really. Koca even went on to accuse the referee of ‘throwing himself on the ground’.

Condemnation has been swift. Gianni Infantino, the Fifa president, said the events were ‘totally unacceptable and have no place in our sport and society’. The Turkish Football Federation deplored the incident as ‘inhumane and despicable’. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been swift to condemn the attack. ‘Sport is incompatible with violence,’ he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. ‘We will never allow violence to take place in Turkish sports’.

Erdogan obviously doesn’t watch much football in Turkey, where there is a widespread culture of open contempt towards referees. Match officials are routinely targeted for abuse from all those involved in the game. The atmosphere at matches can be ugly. British fans who travel to European matches in Turkey are warned to be on their guard and routinely subject to abuse and intimidation. Galatasaray, one of Turkey’s leading clubs, is notorious for the hostility of its fans towards visiting player and fans. ‘Welcome to Hell’, they proudly declare.

It is not just Turkey that is facing problems. The Greek government, reacting to continued violence at sporting grounds, has announced that football matches will be played behind closed doors until February. No one involved in football in Britain can afford to be complacent. Matches in the Premier League routinely involve the abuse of officials from all sections of the so-called footballing community. This is something that appears to be lost on many of those involved in the game, including players, managers, television pundits and fans. The cruel and open mockery of referees is widespread on and off the pitch. Players continue to routinely surround officials and swear openly at their decisions, all caught on camera. Managers, including Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp and Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta, have been roundly criticised for their behaviour towards referees. Other managers and coaches are often no better: it has become commonplace for every loss to be blamed on refereeing decisions. Television pundits routinely lambast match officials for failures involving Var (video assistant referee). Honestly, who would want to be a referee?

Infantino made an obvious but important point in his comments after the referee assault in Turkey. ‘Without match officials there is no football,’ he said. Too many people involved in the game appear to have forgotten this. Football is anything but the ‘beautiful game’ for referees. Instead it more and more resembles a thankless and increasingly dangerous job.

The convenient timing of Meghan and Harry’s Christmas video

There’s that well-known saying of ‘anything you can do, I can do better’. In what can only be an attempt to upstage the official Royal Family’s latest offering, this seems to be the credo of Harry and Meghan as they release a new, wholly vainglorious video showing the ‘impact’ of the Archewell foundation in 2023. If you’ve ever seen a teenager create a flashy ‘what I did on my holidays’ clip that is clearly designed to go viral on social media, you’ll have a good idea of what to expect from this entirely immodest offering.

Over a tinkly would-be power anthem that begins with the lyrics ‘Over the hills and far away/Looking out for a better day’ – remind you of anyone else living in a land far, far away? – we see clips of Harry and Meghan laughing and hugging a succession of people who look suitably overawed to be in their presence. (There is a lot of hugging.) The song majors in the kind of all-purpose uplift that Coldplay once specialised in, as the singer exhorts the listener to ‘Keep your head up/Standing strong if you dream and believe you can find a way back home’. Given the much-discussed estrangement of Harry from his family – and his brother in particular – this particular ‘way back home’ seems unlikely to be available to him any time soon.

It is a transparent PR job for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – being filmed looking earnest on World Mental Health Day and gazing lovingly into one another’s eyes. As such, it joins the ranks of similar clips that have been released annually by the Archewell organisation: traditionally something to look forward to in January, along with a Christmas hangover, an income tax bill and cold, miserable weather.

Yet this year, the video has been brought out early, as a pre-Christmas treat. Is that because the activities of Harry and Meghan have been so comprehensive, and so damn good, that they need to be celebrated a whole month earlier than usual?

Perhaps. But it’s also suspiciously convenient timing that the clip has come out both shortly after the Princess of Wales released a rather less cringeworthy video of her and her children visiting the Maidenhead baby bank. This latter video has a rather more informal and likeable quality to it, as Catherine and her children pack presents for under-privileged children this Christmas. Granted, its purpose is as transparent as the Archewell offering – to show the dedication of the British Royal Family to good deeds and helping the less fortunate – but it feels a good deal less slick and Californian. Not least, that is, because it doesn’t have would-be inspirational singing plastered all over it like aural grouting.

The last few months have not been happy ones for Brand Sussex. The publication of Omid Scobie’s Endgame was mired in controversy, as the identities of the ‘royal racists’ were revealed via a snafu in the Dutch translation. Meanwhile, the book’s comparatively low sales, compared to the bestselling Finding Freedom, indicate that the public are sick and tired of the Duke and Duchess attempting to offer a deeply sanitised and largely unconvincing version of their actions in the public eye.

Still, as I’m a Celebrity comes to an end, offering attempts at rehabilitation for unlikely public figures from Nigel Farage to Matt Hancock, is it truly out of the question that the 2025 edition will see a glowering, red-headed royal prince taking his turn eating kangaroo anus and bull’s penis? After the indignities Harry has faced in trying to maintain his position in the public eye, of which this is just the latest, the opportunity to offer the public ‘his truth’ for the umpteenth time might yet be too tempting to pass up.  

Where is the solidarity with Guyana?

On Monday, the Stop the War Coalition (StWC), the environmentalist group Just Stop Oil (JSO), the Socialist Campaign Group (SCG), which is a group of ‘Corbynite’ MPs, and Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project, held a joint press conference. With differences in emphasis, they all strongly condemned the moves of Venezuela’s dictator-president Nicolas Maduro to annex the Essequibo region of neighbouring Guyana. 

‘The last thing the world needs right now is another imperialist war for oil’, a StWC spokesman said. JSO were particularly dismayed by Maduro’s announcement that he would immediately ‘grant operating licenses for the exploration and exploitation of oil, gas and mines in the entire area of our Essequibo’. The SCG said they felt compelled to speak out, because Maduro continued to insist on calling himself a ‘socialist’, a label which, according to the SCG, he had forfeited any right to use. 

The press conference was followed by a ‘Solidarity with Guyana’ march from Parliament Square to the Venezuelan embassy, where activists waved Guyana flags, and held up banners condemning Maduro.

You have probably guessed by now that none of this happened. I just made it up. There was, of course, no press conference, no ‘solidarity march’, or any other kind of condemnation of Maduro’s ‘Greater Venezuela’ plans from Britain’s socialists.

But why not? These types are usually not shy to take sides in foreign policy conflicts, and this one has all the hallmarks of the kind of conflict they normally get excited about. 

Last Sunday, Maduro held a referendum on the question of whether Venezuela should annex Essequibo. Only about one in ten potential voters bothered to turn up, but among this small ‘selectorate’, almost everyone said yes. Maduro proceeded to distribute new maps of Venezuela, which include Essequibo, and more importantly, he ramped up military presence at the border. 

Granted, the border dispute did not start with Maduro. In theory, Venezuela has always been laying claim to Essequibo. But this dispute had been dormant for decades before Maduro chose to rekindle it. Even Maduro’s predecessor and political idol Hugo Chavez, who was fond of mixing his socialist rhetoric with fervent nationalism, never showed much interest in the region. Nor did Maduro himself, in his previous role as Chavez’s Foreign Minister. 

So why now, all of a sudden? 

When western governments or their allies are involved in foreign policy conflicts, western progressives are usually quick to suspect economic motives behind it. This stems not just from a general distrust of western governments, and Britain and America in particular. It is also an application of Lenin’s idea that ‘imperialism’ is ‘the highest stage of capitalism’.

Although I tend to lean towards non-interventionism on foreign policy, I have always been sceptical of such claims. Regimes that are politically hostile to the West are usually quite happy to sell their oil, or whatever resources they may possess, to the West anyway.

In the case of Venezuela, however, the economic motive is unusually clear-cut. It looks nothing like a typical border dispute. It involves no national minority on the ‘wrong’ side of the border, and no landmarks of symbolic importance to Venezuela’s national story. Essequibo is a sparsely populated region, and its inhabitants – who are far more likely to speak English or an English-based creole language than Spanish – have no particular connection to Venezuela. The only thing that changed in recent years is that new oil reserves were discovered, and that, as a result, Guyana is experiencing the one thing which has become a distant memory in Venezuela: economic growth. 

Western socialists would no doubt retort that what happens in Venezuela is none of their business, and that asking them to condemn Maduro is a bad-faith argument. They are wrong. It very much is their business. They made it their business when they made Venezuela their poster child of the ‘Socialism of the 21st Century’. From the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s, Venezuela was regularly held up as a shining example of a new model of socialism. Everyone on the anti-capitalist Left was at it.

Yet when the Venezuelan economy collapsed, its western admirers simply fell silent. Astonishingly, they managed to get away with it.

Why I love the Hold Steady

Live music is thriving right now. According to the US trade magazine Billboard, Taylor Swift’s Eras tour has so far grossed an estimated $838m, and that’s just from 66 shows in the Americas. It’s already the second highest-grossing tour in pop history, and she hasn’t had to cross an ocean yet.

At the top end, live music is indeed awash in cash. But at the grassroots end, it really isn’t: December began with one of the UK’s best loved small venues, Moles, in Bath, announcing its bankruptcy – one more historic room set to shut down. Bands complain about venues taking a third of their merchandise revenues, a recent practice that eats into one of the few areas where musicians really can make some money.

International touring has become harder and harder. For UK bands, getting into Europe after Brexit has become an administrative nightmare. For US bands, coming to Britain to be paid in sterling is barely worth it – the exchange rate reduces their fee to untenable levels. It’s not as if there’s one single villain here. Everyone in the live music business – venue owners, booking agents, promoters, musicians – is finding it harder than ever to make sense of the touring business, and harder still to make money from it. Which is why every sensible artist these days is trying to find ways to minimise outgoings and monetise new things.

As November tipped over into December, I travelled to New York to see the Hold Steady. I do this every year, because they’re my favourite band, and because I’m friends with them (I wrote a book with and for them last year). They never were and never will be a big band. They’re at the level of a beloved cult, but unusually for a band 20 years into their career, they’re continuing to evolve and make worthwhile new music. Crucially they have also figured out how to make their status work for them financially: they do multi-night runs in a small number of cities, with other activities fans can pay to participate in.

It helps, too, if an artist can inspire the same level of loyalty as the Hold Steady do, and if they create rituals the way the band and their fans have done. Looking around the venue, I saw many of the same faces I do every year, both in Brooklyn and during their March visits to London. Key to all this is that the Hold Steady are a startlingly good rock’n’roll band, fronted by the best lyricist of his generation.

Still, these shows wouldn’t be half the pleasure they are without the people who attend them: you could spend the entire evening people-watching, paying no attention to the stage. There was the pair of middle-aged men just in front of me one night, mouthing all the lyrics to each other with accompanying hand gestures, as if in conversation. There was the solicitor from Leeds moving through the crowd dispensing drinks to anyone he felt needed one, barely watching the actual show. There was the young woman in the front row, dispensing bags of confetti for throwing at appropriate moments in the set.

It’s not a model everyone can replicate. You need enough songs to play four different sets. You need fans old enough to have the time and money to travel. And you need to accept that this is your limit: there is no path from here to arenas. This is it: you’re in your 50s and from now on it’s about residencies in clubs. That might be too hard for some musicians to come to terms with, but the Hold Steady have made it work for them, and turned a lesson in music industry economics into an annual source of joy.

Michael Hann is the author of The Gospel of the Hold Steady: How a Resurrection Really Feels (Akashic Books)

Asylum seeker dies on board migrant barge

An asylum seeker has died on the Bibby Stockholm boat. The identity of the migrant who lost his life on board the barge in Dorset, which has been used to house those awaiting the outcome of their asylum application, has not been confirmed. A spokesman for the Home Office said: ‘We are aware of reporting of an incident. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this time’.

Steve Smith, CEO of refugee charity Care4Calais, said: ‘Our thoughts are with the person who has lost their life, their family and their friends.’

News of the death came hours before a crunch Commons vote on the government’s plan to send migrants to Rwanda. Rishi Sunak is attempting to persuade Tory MPs not to rebel against his emergency legislation to get the scheme off the ground. A previous version of the plan was judged to be unlawful by the Supreme Court.

The Bibby Stockholm boat in Portland is home to 300 migrants. The boat has been beset with problems since the first asylum seekers arrived over the summer. In August, those on board were evacuated after Legionella bacteria was found in the vessel’s water system.

Macron suffers a ‘stunning’ setback over his immigration crackdown

Emmanuel Macron refused to accept the resignation of his interior minister on Monday evening after the government’s immigration bill was thrown out of parliament. It was a crushing humiliation for Gerald Darmanin, as well as Macron, and a moment of exquisite pleasure for their many political opponents. 

In an unprecedented show of unity, right and left came together to adopt by just five votes a motion proposed by the Green Party to reject the bill without even debating it. They did so, however, for different reasons.

In the eyes of the left, the bill is ‘racist and xenophobic: they particularly object to the proposal to cut welfare benefits and expel more illegal immigrants; while the right – Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and the centre-right Republicans – considered it too liberal, specifically the clause that would regularise the status of illegal immigrants working in some job sectors. Le Pen told reporters she was ‘delighted’ with the outcome because it ‘protected the French from a migratory tidal wave’. 

Le Monde described the bill’s rejection as a ‘stunning setback for the government’, a description echoed in Le Figaro’s editorial this morning, which said it represents ‘the biggest setback suffered by Emmanuel Macron since his arrival at the Élysée’. 

Macron was elected president in 2017 on a pledge that he was ‘neither left, (nor) right’, and he attracted to his Renaissance party figures from the left (like his Socialist prime minister Elisabeth Borne) and from the right (such as Darmanin). His ambiguous governance was epitomised by his favourite slogan, ‘En Meme Temps’ (At the Same Time); in other words, saying one thing but doing another, in an attempt to keep his disparate party united. 

But, as with the Tories, the divisions within Macron’s party have been exposed by the question of immigration and the president has failed to produce a bill that satisfied his own party, let alone the rest of parliament.  

The bill has been over a year in the pipeline, a priority of Darmanin ever since a 12-year-old Parisian girl was raped and murdered, allegedly by an Algerian woman who should have been deported. But, as Le Figaro points out, since then Macron and his government have ‘continued to prevaricate, to put forward an incoherent plan. How can they promise to be tougher on immigration while at the same time saying they want to regularise the situation of illegal immigrants working in so-called short-staffed jobs?’. 

The truth is that Macron, like Sunak, is at heart in favour of free movement. Even if this bill had passed it wouldn’t have addressed the issue of legal migration, which, during Macron’s presidency, has reached an historic high. In particular, the right, including Macron’s former prime minister, Edouard Philippe, want to reexamine the 1968 treaty with Algeria that makes it much easier for their citizens to settle in France. 

Macron ruled out such a move last week, and on Sunday he attempted to influence parliament’s vote in an address that lauded France’s ‘tradition of asylum’. Speaking at a ceremony to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Macron said:

‘France maintains its long tradition of asylum for those whose rights are threatened in their countries, and we will continue to defend this right of asylum…It protects freedom fighters and was conceived after World War II when many stateless individuals roamed Europe’.

Macron’s words may have done more harm than good, underlining the fact that, like many progressive leaders, he doesn’t appear to understand the difference between genuine asylum seekers who are fleeing persecution, and economic migrants; among the ten nations  most represented in asylum claims in France are Turkey, Pakistan, Albania, Georgia, Bangladesh, Nigeria and the Ivory Coast. 

There was speculation among some political commentators on Monday evening that Macron could dissolve parliament in the wake of the defeat; that seems unlikely, as does – at this stage – the triggering of article 49.3 of the constitution, which permits a government to pass legislation without putting it to a parliamentary vote. This has been a favourite tactic of this government, and it was used to push through the unpopular pension reform bill earlier this year. 

Having refused Darmanin’s resignation, Macron told him to ‘submit proposals to move forward by overcoming this blockage and obtaining an effective law’. The most likely way this can be achieved is the formation of a joint committee formed of seven MPs and seven senators to produce a compromise bill, which is then submitted for a vote in the lower and upper houses. As the centre-right Republicans dominate the senate, this would allow them to toughen the bill to suit their taste and that of Le Pen’s National Rally. But it would then require the support in parliament of Macron’s Renaissance Party, many of whom are left-wing and pro-immigration.

Macron spent Monday in Toulouse where he unveiled the latest phase of his strategy to put France ‘at the forefront of technological and industrial innovation’. Like Rishi Sunak, this is where Macron is happiest, surrounded by like-minded people all imagining a bright and successful future. Instead their governments are menaced by the one issue they just can’t escape: mass and uncontrolled immigration. 

Cleverly takes a swipe at the Spartans

Christmas party season is in full swing and last night it was the turn of the Onward think tank. Old survivors and bright young things gathered in the Georgian splendour of the Royal Society of Arts to hear from star speaker James Cleverly. Though the mood in government is grim, the Home Secretary betrayed little trace of that, listing to assembled wonks, hacks and assorted grandees his colleagues’ achievements in office, including ‘doubling the number of immigration ministers’.

But it was a classical allusion that caught Steerpike’s ear when Cleverly sought to channel his inner Boris Johnson with a slight dig at the self-identifying ‘Spartans’ of the European Research Group. The Home Secretary told the room that ‘We need to have the resolve, the determination, of those Spartan warriors. This time I’m determined that, unlike the struggle of Thermopylae, we are not going to be destroyed – we are going to be victorious.’ Jolly good luck with that…

Across town, it was the turn of Cleverly’s opposite number, Yvette Cooper, to take to the stage at the Labour Together drinks with the Daily Mirror. The Shadow Home Secretary had the lefties laughing with her allusion to Cleverly’s private views about his government’s flagship offshore processing scheme. She joked that he ‘knows the Rwanda policy is batshit, Tory MPs are going apeshit and they’ll soon be in deep sh… ambles’.

All good fun – but who will get the last laugh when the Rwanda Bill is voted on tonight?