Brexit

Monday

Steerpike

Watch: Beast of Bolsover takes Theresa May to task

Theresa May is having a hard time in the Commons on all sides but the most outspoken attack has come from a typical suspect. Step forward, Dennis Skinner. The Beast of Bolsover took the PM to task for delaying the Brexit vote, saying that by doing so she had handed over power to Brussels: ‘Mrs Thatcher had a word for it. What she has done today: F – R – I – T. She’s frit.’ Mr S is pleased to see that Skinner appears to have found some common ground with the Iron Lady…

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Theresa May must now admit she has failed. What happens next?

The Prime Minister had one job, after she took the greatest office in the land in July 2016 – which was to negotiate an orderly sensible Brexit. Today she will admit she has failed. Because rather than risk seeing an overwhelming majority of MPs vote down the Brexit plan she has meticulously and painstakingly agreed with the EU, she will today tell MPs she is pulling the vote. Two questions follow. What on earth can she say at 3.30pm today to persuade MPs and the nation that she has a strategy for a better Brexit outcome? And will MPs actually let her pull that vote? MPs of ALL parties –

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Eurosceptics threaten to block Government delay to Brexit vote 

Could we end up with Parliament voting on the Brexit deal tomorrow anyway? Eurosceptic Tory MPs have reacted with fury to the announcement that the government will delay the vote, with a number threatening to vote against the delay.  I understand that the European Research Group is currently discussing whether this is actually possible as an official position, but in the meantime MPs such as James Duddridge and Andrea Jenkyns have already made their threats public.  However, sources tell me that the advice given to the ERG has been that the Government might not even have to call a vote on delaying the vote, as it can merely avoid moving

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Why Theresa May has decided to postpone the Brexit vote

Faced with a choice between a humiliating defeat or moving a vote in order to delay a humiliating defeat, Theresa May has plumped for the latter. This morning, cabinet sources say the Prime Minister made the decision to delay the vote on her Brexit deal. Despite No.10 insisting repeatedly this morning that the vote would go ahead on Tuesday, the scale of defeat appears to have become too much and there are now plans to try and shelve it. Cabinet sources suggest that the vote will be moved to January. The vote could still go ahead if May’s opponents find a procedural ruse by which to thwart the government. This

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The ECJ Brexit ruling hands power back to Britain

The “People’s Vote” is celebrating the judgement by the European Court of Justice that Britain could unilaterally revoke Article 50 at any point up until 29 March next year and remain in the EU under existing terms. It destroys the argument that Michael Gove made last weekend: that reversing our decision to stay in the EU would lead to vastly inferior terms, the loss of Britain’s rebate and so on. And while the government still describes the judgement as hypothetical, it will also heap huge pressure on Theresa May if she loses tomorrow’s seemingly doomed vote on her withdrawal bill. Like it or not, she will have to fend off

Sunday

Charles Moore

The Mail may suffer yet for its Brexit volte-face

I may have spoken too soon when I predicted that the Daily Mail might not suffer from its Brexit volte-face. At the Daily Telegraph’s Christmas charity phone-in last Sunday, I was struck by how many donating readers mentioned the Mail’s desertion, and by reports of recruitment by the Telegraph of disconsolate Mail readers. There are rumours that the Mail’s new editor, Geordie Greig, has personally rung to plead with readers who are cancelling their subscriptions. Geordie is a charming man, but obviously he cannot speak to all the disgruntled tens of thousands. The Mail has chosen to switch from an insurgent to an establishment position just when that establishment is

Saturday

James Forsyth

Will the government find a way to avoid Tuesday’s vote?

Key Cabinet Ministers are urging Theresa May to avoid a vote on her Brexit deal on Tuesday night. I report in The Sun this morning that they fear that if it goes ahead, the government will lose by a margin so large that it could bring the whole thing crashing down. One Secretary of State tells me that it would be ‘group suicide’ to press ahead with the vote. Number 10 say that no decision on whether to find a way to avoid the vote has been taken yet; senior figures there say that decision will not be taken until Monday. But they do admit that they are making little

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Could Dominic Grieve’s Brexit amendment launch a new party?

Inside the Dominic Grieve amendment carried on Tuesday is the embryo of a new political party. Any parliamentary majority for what Sir Oliver Letwin, who voted for the amendment, calls ‘something real’ (‘Norway plus’) if Mrs May’s deal falls would depend on the support of a good many Labour MPs. After three months’ work, the organisers believe they have got 75 such on board, led by Chuka Umunna. These are anti-Brexit, chiefly Blairite Labour MPs who cannot bear Jeremy Corbyn. If their number held up (a big ‘if’), the organisers calculate, the House could carry ‘Norway plus’, with the government and most Conservative backbenchers supporting, even if the ‘hard’ Brexiteers

John Connolly John Connolly

The full list: MPs voting for and against May’s Brexit deal

It’s the question that’s on everyone’s lips this week in Westminster: now that the Brexit negotiations have been finalised by the EU, will Theresa May be able to get her withdrawal agreement through the House of Commons? So far, the numbers are not in her favour. Labour have confirmed they will whip against her deal, as have the SNP and other opposition parties. Meanwhile the DUP have said they will vote against the proposal – rather than just abstain. That means even if Theresa May could count on complete party loyalty in the upcoming meaningful vote, she would still be four votes short of the 320 needed for a majority.

Friday

Anthony Masters

Did Vote Leave’s overspending win the referendum for Brexit?

An Oxford professor’s claim that it was “very likely” that  overspending by Vote Leave swung the referendum for Brexit has taken off like wildfire. Professor Philip Howard’s analysis made the front page of yesterday’s Independent under the headline: ‘Illegal Facebook spending ‘won 2016 vote for Leave”. So do the numbers behind the headline add up? Prof Howard, director of the Oxford Internet Institute, calculated that: Around 80 million Facebook users saw the Vote Leave campaign ads on social media during the period of excess spending; 10 per cent of users clicked through; 10 per cent of those users switched their vote as a result, giving over 800,000 switched voters. This argument

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Could Labour drop its plan for a no confidence vote?

The working assumption in Westminster at the moment is that Theresa May will lose Tuesday’s meaningful vote on her Brexit deal, and then the Labour Party will table a motion of no confidence in the government. The Tory whips certainly seem as concerned about that no confidence vote as they are about the Brexit vote, given they are resigned to losing one but have a good chance of winning the other. But I’m not sure that this is the case any more. The public language from the Opposition has changed in recent days to suggest that there will not be a separate vote after all – or at least not

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

The problem with a ‘People’s Vote’

Surprise! The Economist has come out in favour of a new referendum on Brexit, joining Sadiq Khan, Tony Blair and possibly the entire cast of Strictly in calling for a People’s Vote. It observes sagely: “no one can claim to intuit what the people want. The only way to know is to ask them”. And of the PM’s peculiar tour of the nation to flog her plan (why?), it declares that it is an exercise in “pantomime” democracy:“May is right that MPs should take into account what the public think. So should she: not by guessing, but by calling on them to vote”. But on what? What all the demands for

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why politicians should fear Project Fear

‘Project Fear’ didn’t work out in the 2016 Brexit referendum, with voters turning against the ‘experts’ maligned by Michael Gove and other Leave campaigners. So it’s strange to see the Conservatives reigniting it again in the run-up to Tuesday’s vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal, warning of six months of disruption at Dover and other ports in the event of no deal. There’s no evidence that this squeeze message is really going to work on Tory MPs and whittle down the scale of the expected defeat next week. The return of Project Fear is also a reminder of the danger of a second referendum for those who hope that it

Anthony Browne

Why the Norway model wouldn’t work for Britain

In the corridors of Westminster and the salons of some remainers, there is a lot of excited chatter about the “Norway option”. This would involve being a member of the EEA and single market, but not of the EU. Depending on who is pushing, Norway is presented as either a temporary or permanent alternative to Theresa May’s troubled deal. But there are problems with this quick fix. The well discussed issue that being in the EEA doesn’t end freedom of movement is one; another is the fact that the Norway option doesn’t end EU budget contributions. But more fundamentally, few appreciate just how a regime that (sort of) suits Norway

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 6 December 2018

Big defeats Could the vote on the Brexit deal set a record for a government defeat in the Commons? Aside from opposition day motions and other votes where nothing substantive is at stake, the post-1945 record is shamefully held by MPs who voted against the Major government’s attempt to limit pay rises for MPs (motion lost by 215 votes). Other hefty defeats (with the margin of defeat): 1978 (Labour, Jim Callaghan) Opposition amendment demanding income tax basic rate be cut from 34% to 33%, 108 votes.} 2014 (Coalition, David Cameron) Under-occupancy rules for social housing, 75 votes. 1978 (Labour, Jim Callaghan) Clause on Wales devolution referendum, 72 votes. 1975 (Labour,

The Spectator

Beyond May

On Tuesday, MPs will face something rare: a Commons motion which really does deserve to be described as momentous. It will set Britain’s place in Europe and in the world for years to come. The vote will place an especially heavy burden on Conservative MPs, for they have the power to inflict a hefty defeat on their own government, an administration which has no majority and which governs thanks only to a confidence and supply agreement with the DUP. It is all too easy to see where defeat on Tuesday could lead: to the collapse of the government, a general election and the arrival of Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street.

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 6 December 2018

Home Political hobbyists speculated on the future of Brexit if the government fell, if a new Conservative leader was chosen, if a general election was called or if a second referendum was held. Debates were tabled over five days, in prospect of a Commons vote on 11 December on the withdrawal agreement from the EU to which Theresa May, the Prime Minister, had agreed. She told the Commons that it would allow Britain to negotiate, sign and ratify new trade deals from the moment it left next March (even if none could be implemented until the end of the transition period, 31 December 2020 at the earliest, or by any

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Stephen Lloyd’s baffling decision to resign the Lib Dem whip

Brexit has left the three main parties that stand in England in an existential mess, split not just over the fundamental question of Leave vs Remain, but also over how to approach the deal that Theresa May has brought back from Europe. One of the odder splits tore open today, with Eastbourne MP Stephen Lloyd announcing he was resigning the Liberal Democrat whip so that he could back the government next week.  In a statement confirming his resignation, Lloyd said: “I have come to the conclusion that I cannot honestly uphold the commitment I made to Eastbourne and Willingdon two and a half years ago, and reiterated since – to

Douglas Murray

If Brexit is abandoned, will it ever be worth voting again?

Earlier this year I was approached at a party by a prominent and slightly oiled ‘Remainer’. Amid other pleasantries she asked me, interrogatively: ‘You voted “Leave”, Douglas. Can you give me one good reason why we should still leave the EU?’. Having watched the last two-and-a-half years from the sidelines, depressed by almost the entire political debate in the UK, I could think of no argument that would be new to her. We’ve all been round this too many times before, and almost no one has conceded anything new on the subject for years. So I decided to relay the feeling that was (and still is) foremost in my mind.

Robert Peston Robert Peston

What does a leaked recording reveal about Boris’s Brexit stance?

I’ve been sent a recording of a presentation made on Tuesday by the great champion of Brexit, Boris Johnson, over breakfast in Amsterdam. He was talking to “chief risk officers” of financial firms at an event called RiskMinds International, that was sponsored by, among others, the huge accounting firm PWC and the management consultancy McKinsey. Days before that big vote on Theresa May’s version of Brexit, which Johnson passionately opposes, he talks about the importance of politicians, like his hero Churchill, taking a stand against the establishment and “gambling” – making a “giant bet” – to do the right thing. I am not going to comment much on what he