Theresa may

This week the Conservative Party quietly abandoned the promises made by Theresa May to the British people on the steps of Downing Street when becoming Prime Minister. As a then-new First Lord of the Treasury, May vowed to her fellow citizens that she would right the ‘burning injustices’ that confronted society’s worst-off and prevented them from meeting their fullest potential. The United Kingdom would, she said, ‘be a country that works for everyone’ and made reference to the disadvantages facing minorities in areas like the justice system. The speech had One Nation Tories like me on the edge of their seats, applauding what sounded like a new direction after years

So what happens now Michel Barnier has laid into Theresa May’s customs plan? That’s the question I try and answer in my Sun column this morning. Those close to May are trying to downplay Barnier’s criticisms. One Cabinet Minister remarks, ‘It is not a great surprise. He’s been saying no all along’. This Minister’s view is that it is now ‘up to the member states’ what happens next. But they aren’t likely to come to the rescue of May’s plan: I understand that only a handful of them are interested in it. Barnier’s real aim, as May has told the Brexit inner Cabinet, is to keep Britain in a customs

Theresa May heads to Italy this weekend for her summer holiday with her Brexit proposals hanging by a thread. Not only has the Chequers plan divided her party, led to front bench resignations and talk of a ‘no confidence’ vote, Brussels don’t seem all that keen on it either. As James notes on Coffee House, Michel Barnier appeared to deal it a fatal blow in his joint press conference with Dominic Raab on Thursday. The EU’s chief negotiator made clear that the UK collecting tariffs on behalf of the EU – a key plank of the proposal – was a non-starter: ‘The EU cannot and the EU will not delegate

The Maybot is back. The Prime Minister has just been doing a Q and A with workers in Newcastle when she was asked how she likes to unwind. Here’s what she had to say: ‘There are several things I like to do. I like walking…I enjoy cooking, which has a benefit because you get to eat it as well as make it. I have over 150 cookbooks, so I spend quite a lot of time looking at cookbooks. And…I quite like watching NCIS when I can.’ Time for a reboot?

‘She’s safe until September’. That’s the verdict on Theresa May of one of those who knows the Tory parliamentary party best, I write in The Sun this morning. Number 10 want to use the summer to try and turn opinion around on Mrs May’s Chequers plan. Under consideration, is a plan for her to do events at various venues around the country to try and convince voters of the merits of it. Every Cabinet Minister has been told that they must devote one day over the summer to selling Chequers, including doing broadcast interviews on it. Ministers are already watching closely to see how Esther McVey, the Welfare Secretary, and

The EU is afraid of us, but we’ve got a prime minister who is afraid of the EU. The declaration by the European Commission that member states should prepare for ‘no deal’ is a powerful reminder that EU oligarchs are petrified that we will make a success of independence and expose the flaws in their dream of domination. They fear that we will reform our taxes and update our regulations to raise productivity and take market share from them. Their reaction is not to start improving their own competitiveness but to try to suppress our ability to compete, unfortunately with the willing compliance of the Chequers agreement and its anti-competitive

Thank you Mr Speaker for granting me the opportunity to pay tribute to the men and women of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who have done an outstanding job over the last two years, and I am very proud that we have rallied the world against Russia’s barbaric use of chemical weapons with an unprecedented 28 countries joining together to expel 153 spies in protest at what happened in Salisbury. We have rejuvenated the Commonwealth with a superb summit that saw Zimbabwe back on the path to membership and Angola now wanting to join. And as I leave we are leading global campaigns against illegal wildlife trade and in favour

The government suffered a defeat in the Commons this evening. The good news for Theresa May is that it wasn’t the one No 10 were so worried about. Although Philip Lee’s amendment for European medicines regulatory network partnership succeeded, the Tory rebel amendment calling for the government to join a customs union if it does not agree a free-trade deal with the EU was narrowly defeated, at 307 to 301. This means the government can breathe a little easier for now. They can still claim to agitated Brexiteers that they are negotiating a deal which would allow them to strike international trade deals. As for Brussels, May told the Brexit

Both the Brexit and and Foreign Secretaries have resigned. The Chequers agreement, if that is the right word, looks about as enduring as the latest relationship on Love Island. The Prime Minister is staggering so uncertainly from one option to another that even Donald Trump’s advice over the weekend seemed almost sane. The UK’s strategy for leaving the European Union, insofar as we ever really had one, is in tatters. Big Business will no doubt respond to that with calls for a softer and softer Brexit simply in the hope of getting something in place before March next year. We will hear a lot about cliff edges, and the dangers

Will Theresa May make it to the summer recess? It’s just over a week until Parliament breaks up for the long summer break yet the obstacles the Prime Minister must overcome before then are rapidly increasing in size. After May finally showed her Brexit hand, she has seen a growing Eurosceptic rebellion which shows no signs of letting up anytime soon. Over the weekend, her former minister Steve Baker accused No 10 of being part of a secret plot to render the Brexit department a ‘Potemkin structure to [distract from] what the Cabinet Office Europe unit was doing for the prime minister’. Meanwhile, Jacob Rees-Mogg offered a memorable soundbite –

If Theresa May gets a Brexit deal and it can’t get through parliament, then we are heading towards the most dangerous political crisis in living memory, I say in The Sun this morning. For I very much doubt that the 80 percent of MPs who are opposed to no deal, would let Britain leave without an agreement. But disregarding the result of the referendum—either by abandoning Brexit or leaving only to make Britain, effectively, a non-voting member of the EU—would cause a democratic shock. 17.4 million voters would be, understandably, furious about having their vote ignored. So, what can Mrs May do to avert this disaster? Well, I think there