Brexit

When I was fresh out of university, I applied for a job as a parliamentary aide to Jo Swinson. The MP for East Dunbartonshire was full of promise and more to my political tastes then than the clunky managerialism of new PM Gordon Brown. She rejected me. If nothing else, this shows Swinson has sound judgement. After all, I would have made a terrible Lib Dem staffer. I was – and remain – in favour of the Iraq War, the war on terror, tuition fees, first past the post, nuclear power and erecting a statue of Tony Blair in every parish in the land. For many years, that was the

Love him or hate him, Boris Johnson is big news. His victory in the Tory leadership race – and imminent appointment as Britain’s next PM – has filled newspapers around the world this morning. Brexit aside, it’s rare these days for British politics to make the front pages of papers outside of the UK. But Boris is something of an exception. From the United States, to France, Italy and Spain, here is what the world’s press makes of prime minister Boris. Across the Atlantic, the New York Times warns that the Brexit situation has escalated into a ‘nightmare’ and that Johnson’s ‘policy swerves, lack of attention to detail and contradictory

The penny has finally dropped here in Berlin. After the Brexit party’s success in the European elections – and several missed Brexit deadlines later – most Germans are slowly realising that Brexit will happen. There are some who still hope that the offer of a new Brexit extension – as Ursula von der Leyen has indicated might be on offer – could mean a second referendum, or revocation of Article 50. But fewer now believe either of those remain realistic possibilities. And with Boris Johnson likely to be in Downing Street by tomorrow, these options become harder still to imagine. One leader of the pro-EU movement here – who has been

Before he even gets in to Number 10, Boris Johnson must make one of the most important calls of his premiership. As I say in the Sun this morning, he must decide what his Brexit plan is. On Wednesday, calls with European leaders will begin—and Boris Johnson will have to know what he wants to tell them. As one of those preparing him for government puts it, ‘They’ll call him to say congratulations—and he’ll have to set out his stall’. This is crucial because the European Commission will refuse to negotiate with Boris’s government unless it is instructed to do so by the member states. Within the Johnson camp, there

Darren Grimes has won his appeal against a £20,000 fine imposed by the Electoral Commission. Grimes, the 25-year-old who ran the BeLeave campaign group, was accused by the watchdog of breaching expenditure rules during the EU referendum. Following proceedings which saw Grimes crowdfund his legal campaign, Judge Marc Dight has ruled that the fine be withdrawn. The Guardian reports: ‘Dight agreed with Grimes’ counsel that the campaigner had not intended to mislead and had been confused by the Electoral Commission’s registration form. He further concluded that the commission had failed to satisfy itself beyond reasonable doubt that BeLeave was not a genuine unincorporated association, and therefore was not able to