Theresa may

Donald Trump has always been consistent on Brexit. He admired the spirit of the vote, a freedom-loving people defying their elites, as his deplorables would go on to do. He likes Britain. He dislikes the EU, which he has always regarded as a sort of protection racket for German manufacturing and an institution that gets in the way of his golf course development. Ever since Trump’s inauguration, he has made it clear that America is ready to give Britain the ‘beautiful’ free trade deal that so excites Brexiteers. But he and his advisers have been consistently disappointed by May’s insistence that she must stick by E.U. terms and regulations at

Tory MPs offered a warmer reception to Theresa May’s statement in the Commons this afternoon than they managed during yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions. The Prime Minister herself seemed very confident as she explained today’s political declaration to MPs. That’s about as far as you can go when looking for signs of success in this afternoon’s Commons Brexit drama. For instance, straight after the statement, we received confirmation from Iain Duncan Smith that he and other Brexiteers do still find the Brexit deal unacceptable and will kill it in the Commons. May had only minutes before praised Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson in her statement for ideas that they’d offered for

MPs and ministers who had settled down in Parliament on Tuesday evening for a late night of votes on the finance bill were given an early reprieve – all votes were off. However, rather than an early Christmas present from No.10, the shelving of votes on the finance bill was down to a reason out of Theresa May’s control: no working majority. With the DUP abstaining for a second day over grievances with the EU withdrawal text, the government decided to concede all amendments to the bill – including one from the SNP. It’s not clear they would have lost on every single amendment but after the antics of Monday

Is Theresa May about to face a vote of no confidence in her leadership? The Prime Minister is acting as though nothing has changed, to coin a phrase, focusing on selling her Brexit plan to business leaders at the CBI, rather than getting too bogged down with the internal problems with her party. But those trying to organise the move against her had been making noises all day that they may have the requisite number of letters calling for such a vote by this evening. This doesn’t look like it’s going to be the case. Indeed, today a number of Brexiteers including Owen Paterson and Iain Duncan Smith have been

Theresa May’s problems have not let up over the weekend. With speculation mounting about an impending confidence vote, the Sunday papers are filled with reports of leadership rivals sounding out colleagues while Dominic Raab – the former Brexit Secretary – has used an interview to tell May to stand up to Brussels’ bullies (though he has since told Andrew Marr he will still back the PM in any confidence vote). Appearing on Ridge on Sunday this morning, May tried to make the case for both her Brexit deal and her premiership continuing. She said that as far as she knew the 48 letters required for a confidence vote were not

Is a deal better than no deal? In a bid to answer that question, Mr Steerpike published a list of the 40 horrors buried in the small print of Theresa May’s Brexit deal. Downing Street have since been in touch to put forward their own 40 rebuttals to those 40 horrors (we’ll respond on Monday). No.10’s points are in italics. After reading this list, why not try Mr Steerpike’s 40 rebuttals to No.10’s 40 rebuttals here. —————————————————————————————– The supposed ‘transition period’ could last indefinitely or, more specifically, to an undefined date sometime this century (“up to 31 December 20XX”, Art. 132). So while this Agreement covers what the government is calling

Jacob Rees-Mogg observed that my resignation last week was ‘the “Emperor’s New Clothes” moment in the Brexit process’. If this is right, that makes me the child, too young to understand the importance of maintaining pretences, who blurts out before the embarrassed townsfolk that the emperor is naked. I’ve been surprised by the noisy reaction to my departure from the middle ranks of the government. The video I made in my office setting out my reasons for going had two million views in two days. Maybe this is an example of Orwell’s dictum that in a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act. The deceit is that

Today’s PMQs ought to have been the calm before the storm. With Theresa May unable to reveal details of the proposed Brexit deal to MPs until her Cabinet signs it off – with a crunch meeting at 2pm – the specifics are not known. However, thanks to a series of leaks from the Brussels side and the European Research Group quickly seeing red it proved to be rather tense affair. As ever, Jeremy Corbyn failed to land a killer blow on the Prime Minister despite the rather wide goal posts. The SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford had one of his more effective outings – using one question to ask why