Brexit

Farewell to the UK/US trade deal. That’s the news from Liz Truss’s trip to the UN assembly in New York. The Prime Minister has told hacks on the flight over that the UK will not strike an agreement with America for many years. The former international trade secretary suggested that talks were unlikely to even start in the medium term: ‘There isn’t currently any negotiation taking place with the US and I don’t have an expectation that those are going to start in the short to medium term.’ The comments come ahead of her first proper meeting with Joe Biden since becoming Prime Minister. The former International Trade Secretary suggested

Liz Truss may have been a Remainer but she has learned the political lesson of the EU referendum in the way that her genuine Brexiter opponent has seemingly failed to do.  The point is that in today’s milieu, and especially with an electorate of 160,000 largely Brexit-supporting Tory members, power is with the insurgent. In pinning her colours to at least £30 billion of immediate tax cuts, against Sunak’s steady-as-we-go no-tax-cuts-till-prudent mantra, she has defined herself as the crusader against alleged stultifying Treasury orthodoxy. Every time a credible economist accuses her of risking financial ruin – by pushing up national debt and inflation – all she has to do is

Boris’s legacy Sir: It is grossly unfair to assert that Boris Johnson’s legacy was the lockdown (Leading article, 9 July). His chief legacy was, of course, Brexit, followed by the crushing of Corbynism, the world-beating vaccine rollout, and his leading role in supporting Ukraine against the Russian invaders. Not a bad tally. Most European countries, though not Sweden, imposed lockdowns of varying lengths and severity, on the advice of scientists and with overwhelming public support. Governments were on a learning curve when the vicious virus struck. Johnson’s government made mistakes, but got most of the big decisions right. We all know about Johnson’s flaws, but he was a remarkable prime

It is a great and ancient right of all freeborn Englishmen, stretching back far beyond the reaches of our recorded history. From Magna Carta to the Glorious Revolution, it has been woven into each of the defining constitutional moments of the British story, a principle bled and died for on the battlefields of Europe. It is, of course, the right to make a tit of yourself. Whitehall’s Stop Brexit Man has been the most vociferous pursuer of that right in recent years. Steve Bray, with his Brussels blue top hat and shouty megaphone demeanour, loves to make a tit of himself. He marches around Westminster barking inanities at any unsuspecting

Last night’s vote on the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill didn’t turn into an open revolt from Tory MPs – but that’s not to say that there isn’t big trouble for the legislation. A chunk of Conservatives abstained, some of them having made very clear in the debate on the second reading of this legislation that they could not support it. Theresa May, Julian Smith, Simon Hoare and Bob Neill all raised serious concerns in their speeches and did not vote. Other Conservatives who did support the legislation still said they were uncomfortable with certain aspects of it. Robin Millar, who voted in favour, nonetheless told MPs that ‘I have concerns

At the heart of the crisis over the Protocol is its failure to deliver on its own stated aims. To understand this crisis, it is necessary to know some key aspects of the Protocol’s genesis and history. Exactly a month after Theresa May triggered Article 50, the European Commission was instructed by the member states (the European Council of 27) with ensuring the UK’s orderly withdrawal from the EU, including finding arrangements for the island of Ireland. That meant securing the Good Friday Agreement and avoiding a hard border. This was set out in legal guidelines on 29 April 2017 and elaborated in directives for the negotiations the following month:

The UK is about to publish a bill that will override parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol. We are doing this unilaterally – the EU doesn’t want us to do it, but we’re going to do it anyway. Surely that means we’re about to breach international law? It’s worth quickly going over why this is happening. The EU wanted to protect its common market, and no one wanted a border down the island of Ireland, so a trade border was placed in the Irish Sea. That has created trade friction between two constituent parts of the United Kingdom. Unionists are unhappy with that arrangement. And unhappy Unionists have led to

The Ukraine crisis has transformed international affairs, forcing countries the world over to rethink their alliances and interests. New patterns are forming that will probably stay in place for many years – and one outcome is that global deals are being seen as more effective than regional ones. Sweden and Finland look set to join Nato, and Britain has agreed a defence deal with Japan. In theory, EU countries are required to come to the help of any member that is attacked, but Sweden and Finland feel that only Nato membership (which offers a place under America’s nuclear umbrella) can afford them true protection. As they wait for the applications

In the past few months, relations between the UK and the EU have been the best they have been since Brexit. Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine reminded the two sides of the need for the world’s democracies to co-operate. It is tempting to hope that relations could continue to improve, especially now that the French presidential election is out of the way. But, as I say in the magazine this week, this is unlikely to happen. The Northern Ireland protocol is about to return to the agenda. The EU thinks that the UK must be made to abide by what was signed, and that allowing London to wriggle out of

Readers of a certain vintage will remember the 1980s heyday of the light entertainment show Blind Date. A series of well-scrubbed young men and women would compete to be taken out by a potential paramour who was hidden on the other side of a screen. They would begin their moment in the spotlight with a tightly-scripted introduction in which they would offer their name and where they were from. The mass television audience, who had the advantage of being able to see each contestant, would very often form an instant impression based on these few seconds of exposure and its own prejudices. I have often thought this merciless formula is

Belfast, Northern Ireland Phillip Brett was just nine years old the night a neighbour called to say his brother, Gavin, had been shot. Their father raced through the streets of their Belfast estate, arriving just in time to cradle his eldest son as he died. The teenager had been celebrating a friend’s birthday at the local Gaelic football club when he was gunned down by a loyalist gang looking for a Catholic to kill. But they got it wrong – Gavin had been raised Protestant, their parents having married across the sectarian lines that once divided Northern Ireland, with friends from all sides of the mixed community they lived in.