Uk politics

This week’s EU summit in Salzburg should settle three important Brexit questions of profound important to this country’s future and that of the PM too. Most importantly, the leaders of the EU 27 are being asked by their Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and the EU president Donald Tusk how specific and prescriptive they want the Political Declaration on Britain’s prospective relationship with the EU to be. In a way it is astonishing, with just six months to go before we’re out, that Barnier and Tusk do not know something so fundamental about their wishes. And truthfully it is mostly about finding out from the German chancellor Angela Merkel whether she

Theresa May heads to Salzburg tomorrow to try and persuade the leaders of the EU27 of the merits of her Brexit plan. But there’ll be an unwelcome distraction for her in the morning. I understand that the European Commission will issue a reasoned opinion in the Olaf case, where the Commission accuses the UK of failing to prevent customs fraud on shoes and textiles imported from China and is demanding over two billion euros in lost revenue. The UK continues to contest this case, and I understand it has asked the Commission for more information on various points. But the timing of this reasoned opinion has raised eyebrows in government

Theresa May has quite a few challenges to meet this conference season. One is obviously to avoid the sort of farce that her speech descended into last year. Another is to try to unite the warring wings of her party and convince her MPs that Chequers really is the only game in town. But equally as important is the need to show she has things she wants to do when it comes to domestic policy. This is hard: May hasn’t really managed to give that impression at any stage of her premiership, so to start in what feels like the swan song isn’t ideal. Added to that is the general

Philip Hammond’s political tin ear has struck again. As I write in The Sun this morning, he has twice been slapped down in Cabinet this week. On Tuesday, he talked about ‘squealing’ about universal credit and was chastised by the Chief Whip for his language. Those sympathetic to Hammond point out that he was referring to Labour when talking about ‘squealing’. But it was still a poor choice of words when discussing changes to the benefits system. Then at the ‘no deal’ Cabinet on Thursday, Hammond raised the prospect of delaying Brexit day. After the legislative timetable for getting ready for ‘no deal’—which is tight—had been outlined, Hammond pointed out

Remain crusader Gina Miller has repeatedly denied reports that she has plans to become a politician – or, more specifically, leader of the Liberal Democrats. With Miller due to speak at the beleaguered party’s conference next week, it must be pure coincidence that today the campaigner has published a personal manifesto. She has said she wants to ‘take back control of Brexit’ by launching her manifesto to ‘End the Chaos!’ On the home page, Miller opines: ‘I believe it is morally and democratically right to give people as much unbiased information as possible.’ Unbiased being her advocacy for what she is calling ‘Remain Plus’: ‘You can’t have a better tomorrow if

Following last night’s reports of open plotting against Theresa May, her critics in the Conservative party seem rather keen to row back on any suggestion that they really are planning a coup. Iain Duncan Smith, for instance, told BBC Radio 5 Live that he ‘would stamp on’ any attempted challenge, and that the talk of a plot was ‘totally overblown’. Others have pointed out that there were notable senior absences from the European Research Group’s meeting last night, including Bernard Jenkin, David Davis, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg. Of course, even if those big names had been present and plotting merrily away, their plans would have been seriously undermined by