Eu

Thursday

Hugo Rifkind

Let’s rein in Brexiteer triumphalism before we all go mad

According to archaeologists and all the papers last week, the 11th-century villagers of Wharram Percy, North Yorkshire, used to mutilate their dead, chopping off their heads and breaking their legs to minimise the danger of zombie resurrection. ‘Imagine being afraid,’ I chortled while reading this, ‘that the undead might put you in mortal danger!’ Whereupon I flicked forward a couple of pages and came across Michael Howard’s plan to defend Gibraltar by sending a gunboat. Personally, I’m against the idea of war with Spain. Although I say that cautiously, because we Remoaners must not hold back the will of the people. Indeed, such is the way of things these days,

Wednesday

Bjorn Lomborg

The flawed thinking at the heart of the renewable energy swindle

A new report revealing that using wood pellets to generate electricity can actually speed up global warming should be the final nail in the coffin for the flawed policy of biomass subsidies. Policies designed to incentivise green energy use are not only having a dubious effect on climate change, they are destroying biodiversity and even killing many thousands of people. Wood (or to use the technical term covering wood, wood pellets and other burning matter like animal dung, biomass) is by far the most significant renewable energy source. In both the US and the EU, biomass is the single largest source of renewable energy. Owing to poverty, around three billion people globally cook and heat their

Ross Clark Ross Clark

EU leaders like Guy Verhofstadt are proving Brexit was the right choice

Only the EU, an organisation with four presidents, could have two ‘chief negotiators’ charged with agreeing the terms of Britain’s departure from the EU. I am not sure, then, how seriously to take the figure of Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian MEP who has been appointed the European Parliament’s chief negotiator. If we agree something with him, do we then have to agree it with Michel Barnier, the EU’s other ‘chief negotiator’, and if they can’t agree, which ‘chief’ is really in charge? All I know is that what we have seen from the EU’s leaders in months since Britain voted to leave the EU is a good reminder of why

Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Let’s rein in Brexiteer triumphalism before we all go mad

According to archaeologists and all the papers last week, the 11th-century villagers of Wharram Percy, North Yorkshire, used to mutilate their dead, chopping off their heads and breaking their legs to minimise the danger of zombie resurrection. ‘Imagine being afraid,’ I chortled while reading this, ‘that the undead might put you in mortal danger!’ Whereupon I flicked forward a couple of pages and came across Michael Howard’s plan to defend Gibraltar by sending a gunboat. Personally, I’m against the idea of war with Spain. Although I say that cautiously, because we Remoaners must not hold back the will of the people. Indeed, such is the way of things these days,

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

How to solve the Gibraltar problem – in the style of Donald Trump

Two of the top tips in Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal, of which I wrote last week even though he allegedly didn’t write it himself, are ‘Think Big’ and ‘Maximise the Options’, also expressed as ‘I keep a lot of balls in the air’. How should Theresa May apply that advice in response to Spain’s opportunistic bid to raise the issue of sovereignty over Gibraltar as a potential Brexit hurdle? She could, of course, offer a repeat of the 2002 referendum in which Gibraltarians voted 99 per cent ‘No’ when asked whether Britain and Spain should share the Rock’s sovereignty. But the ‘balls in the air’ gambit I

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France’s chaotic Presidential debate was a dismal disappointment

The presidential campaign is nothing if not a test of endurance for the French public although there were moments yesterday evening when the televised debate felt more like a punishment. For four hours, the eleven candidates talked, or to be more precise, shouted, interrupted and ranted at one another. It was, in the words of Le Figaro, a ‘cacophony’ and one that ‘rapidly turned the debate into a confusion’. It was the first time in a presidential campaign that all the candidates, not just the principal ones, have debated and it will probably be the last. A second full-scale debate is scheduled for April 20th but Jean-Luc Mélenchon has already withdrawn given

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Is Theresa May’s media honeymoon over?

Is Theresa May’s media honeymoon over? The bungled Budget might have led to a raft of bad headlines for the Government, but these were mostly aimed in Philip Hammond’s direction. Today, the Sun turns its fire on the Prime Minister. The paper says May has ‘shown she understands what most Brits want’ from Brexit. But it adds a crucial caveat: ‘until now’. The Sun says that while it agrees with her plan to leave the single market behind, it is ‘deeply concerned by suggestions that free movement may apply for a further three years’ after Brexit. Most Brits who wanted out of the EU did so to tighten up Britain’s

Tuesday

Nick Cohen

Brexit is exposing the cowardice of conservatism

The decision by Conservative MPs to walk away from the Commons Committee on Exiting the EU is one of the most unintentionally revealing abdications of duty I have seen. The report they refused to endorse was polite to the point of blandness. The necessity of securing cross-party approval meant that its restrained language bore little relation to the chaos in Whitehall the committee’s hearings had uncovered. In March, the committee’s chair, Hilary Benn, showed its extent when he submitted David Davis to a tough cross-examination which the Brexit Secretary was lamentably unable to withstand. Although ministers were parroting the line that ‘no deal was better than a bad deal’, Benn

Mark Nayler

Can Anglo-Spanish relations survive Brexit?

As the events of the last few days show, the increasingly toxic issue of Gibraltar means the UK’s Article 50 talks with Spain might become more fraught than either party would like. It’s not just that Spain wants to share sovereignty of the Rock with Britain; more dangerous is the fact that Brussels can exploit this dispute to punish the UK for Brexit. In fact, this weekend’s fracas over Gibraltar’s post-Brexit status shouldn’t have caused the uproar it did. True, the document distributed to EU member governments on Friday by Donald Tusk highlighted Spain’s ability to veto Gibraltar’s inclusion in any EU-UK deal; but as part of the soon-to-be 27 member bloc, Spain already possessed that ability. After all, every other member state would have a veto too.

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: the Gibraltar row heats up

Theresa May says the way to deal with the row over Gibraltar is ‘jaw-jaw’ rather than war. And there is plenty of chatter on the subject in today’s newspapers: Of course we don’t want a war with Spain, says the Sun. But ‘nor will we sit quietly’ and let Madrid ‘launch its latest ridiculous attempt to claim the territory’. Some have said that Theresa May brought this mess upon herself, by failing to namecheck Gibraltar in her Article 50 letter to the European Union last week. This isn’t the case, says the paper, which points out that the PM is right to say the Rock’s ‘future is settled and its

Monday

James Forsyth

Theresa May is heading for trouble over the Brexit ‘divorce’ bill

ICM, who Vote Leave used for their own referendum polling, have some striking numbers on what elements of an EU exit deal British voters would find acceptable. 54 per cent of voters regard maintaining free movement as part of a transition deal – something that Theresa May wouldn’t rule out in her interview with Andrew Neil – as acceptable. However, there is clearly going to be a big problem with any exit payment. 64 per cent regard a £10 billion payment as unacceptable, with that figure rising to 70 per cent for a £20 billion payment—which is at the low end of what people in Brussels think Britain ought to

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Is Emmanuel Macron part of an establishment plot?

In 2002, I befriended an old Frenchman called Andre. He had been a resistant, one of the first, and when the SAS parachuted into the wooded, rolling countryside of the Morvan in central France, he was there to greet them. For three months in the summer of 1944, the SAS and the Resistance waged a guerrilla war. It was a brutal campaign. Andre took me to the church tower from where the Germans had hurled the village priest, and he showed me the forest clearing where his Resistance group had shot a 15-year-old boy for betraying one of their number to the Nazis. Andre also told me about his acquaintanceship with François

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

The EU’s Gibraltar mistake

It was quite right for Theresa May to not mention Gibraltar in her Article 50 letter – why should the future of its people be in question in our negotiations? To do so would be to introduce a dangerous notion: that Gibraltar and its people were somehow a bargaining chip. Of course, the press will have fun with the idea that the Prime Minister forgot Gibraltar but far more plausible is Tim Shipman’s story in the Sunday Times today that the idea of mentioning it in the Brexit letter was raised several times – and rejected. That the EU has brought Gibraltar up as part of the Brexit deals right now is strange and shows a worrying

Fredrik Erixon

Britain and the EU probably will reach a trade deal. Here’s why

Most diplomats in Brussels will tell you that Theresa May has just embarked upon a fool’s errand, that Britain might wish for a free-trade deal with the European Union but will have to learn that it can’t cherry-pick. Anyway, they say, nothing of any value can be agreed in two years. This received wisdom can be heard, under various iterations, in most capitals in Europe — and it’s natural that the EU will be sore, perhaps a little defensive. But there is a free-trade deal to be struck. First, a declaration: I didn’t want Britain to leave the EU. I’m a Swede running a free-trade thinktank in Brussels and can tell

Saturday

European politics is following in Israeli footsteps

For Israelis, Europe’s political landscape is looking increasingly familiar. Whereas Israel was once seen as something of a political backwater, nowadays it’s European politicians who seem to be gazing across to Israel for inspiration. Those on the right are leading the way: from Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders to Austria’s Norbert Hofer, this group of populist politicians are tending to see in Israel’s brand of nationalism a model for their own. In January, Le Pen spoke of a ‘patriotic spring‘ of nationalism in Europe; she went on to say that ‘we are experiencing the return of nation-states’. And who better to provide inspiration for that than Israel? Le Pen – despite her father saying that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Theresa May’s Brexit negotiation has got off to a good start

There’s an awfully long way to go, but the Brexit negotiations got off to a good start for Theresa May this week I say in The Sun today. Number 10’s great worry was that there would be an immediate no from the EU to what it proposed. That is why May’s Article 50 letter was written in such a conciliatory and constructive tone—it was meant to be impossible to simply say no to. This approach has had some success. In his negotiating guidelines, EU Council President Donald Tusk doesn’t suggest that the UK has to hand over the so-called divorce payment before trade talks can start—something which would have been

James Forsyth James Forsyth

An independent Britain’s top priority: staying friends with the EU

On 29 March 2019 the Queen should have a state dinner and invite the European Union’s 27 heads of state and its five presidents. The evening’s purpose would be to toast the new alliance between the United Kingdom and the EU: one based on free trade, security cooperation and shared democratic values. This celebration of the new alliance will be especially welcome after two years of negotiations which are bound to be fraught and, at times, ugly. The complexity and the sums of money involved pretty much guarantee this. There is, though, a particular onus on Britain to keep things civil. We have chosen to end this failed relationship, so

Friday

Henry Newman

The European Council pulls its punches in its draft Brexit plan

So we have the first sight of the European Council’s draft negotiating guidelines. They’re much more constructive that we would have been lead to believe. And there are no big surprises. The first headline point is that there is no mention of the €60 billion figure which Jean-Claude Juncker and the European Commission have loved to go on about. In fact no figure is mentioned at all. The section on money is restricted to saying that debts will need to be settled – something Theresa May has already acknowledged. It does not say when the cheque needs to be signed: A single financial settlement should ensure that the Union and the

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: The Great Repeal Bill is the ‘blueprint’ for taking back control

The Great Repeal Bill has been unveiled – and Whitehall is already alive with the sound of copying and pasting as bureaucrats scramble to carry over EU law on to the statute book. With the Brexit clock ticking, is the Government up to the task? Make no mistake, this bill is the ‘the blueprint for restoring the supremacy of Parliament,’ says the Daily Mail. For nearly 50 years, ‘the unelected judges of the European Court’ have been in control of our legal system. But no more: ‘This Bill puts legislative power back where it belongs – in the hands of British MPs and British judges’. Of course, the process of

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Remainers must learn from the optimism of the Brexiteers

In an age when people pride themselves on their cynicism, it’s almost touching to remember that one of the most powerful forces in politics is still optimism. We may routinely dismiss politicians as self-serving vermin, but when the time comes, we generally choose the self-serving vermin who tell the best story of a brighter tomorrow. Better a smiling cockroach than a gloomy one. Optimism is one of the great fault-lines that run beneath the Brexit debate, one that helps explain why the Brexiteers are making the running and why those who still stand opposed to Brexit still have a lot to learn. Simply, the Brexiteers are setting the pace because