Uk politics

Appropriately, given the length of time it has taken politicians of all colours to continue putting off taking any sort of decision on Brexit, the government has decided to try to break the legislative speed record this week by rushing through the Withdrawal Agreement Bill in just a few days. Leader of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg announced the timetable for the legislation in a business statement to the Commons this afternoon, telling MPs that they will be rattling through the second reading tomorrow, as well as starting the committee stage, which will continue the following day, with all Commons stages wrapping up by Thursday. There are threats to make MPs

It was hardly a surprise that this afternoon John Bercow ruled out allowing the government to bring back its meaningful vote on Brexit. Still less of a surprise that this ruling took up nearly an hour in the Commons of points of order from MPs on all sides making points which changed the minds of no-one, and certainly not the Speaker. The Speaker’s argument was as the one the Tories had been preparing for over the weekend: he ruled that it would be ‘repetitive and disorderly’ to hold a second vote on the same motion. What they perhaps hadn’t prepared for was the Speaker doing a series of impersonations of

Is this the week Boris Johnson passes his Brexit deal? As ever with Brexit, there is a chance that what is meant to be a decisive week in terms of the UK’s exit from the European Union ends up leading to more delay and confusion. However, whatever happens in the coming days, senior Tories are increasingly relaxed. It’s not that ministers are confident they will be able to pass the Withdrawal Agreement Bill unscathed. Instead they believe Johnson’s deal puts the party in a good position for whatever comes next. The risk to Johnson agreeing a deal before a general election was that senior Brexiteers in his own party would

Those expecting MPs to finally make a decision on Brexit today may be left disappointed. This afternoon MPs are due to vote on a government motion – on what has been dubbed ‘Super Saturday’ – to signal their approval of the Prime Minister’s deal. The numbers are tight but there is optimism on the government benches that they could do it. This morning Steve Baker told his European Research Group colleagues that they ought to back the deal (for further updates see The Spectator‘s list of MPs backing the deal). However, MPs may not even get to this vote. John Bercow has this morning accepted Oliver Letwin’s amendment to the

The numbers will be tight today. As I say in The Sun this morning, one minister believes that things are so close that there is a real chance that the Speaker John Bercow may end up having to break a tied vote. Though if the Letwin amendment passes, the vote this afternoon will lose some of its clarity. It is remarkable that Boris Johnson is so close to getting a majority for his deal despite having lost the support of the DUP. Cabinet Ministers are increasingly optimistic that the government might just pull this off. When Cabinet met yesterday afternoon, the Chief Whip Spencer ‘scrupulously avoided giving any numbers’, according

As the only person ever to have been elected for Ukip in a General Election, if I was in the House of Commons today I would not just vote in favour of Boris Johnson’s deal. I would do so cheerfully in the knowledge that this is pretty much what I have spent much of my adult life campaigning for. Firstly, UK law will become supreme in the UK. No longer will we be under the jurisdiction of the EU courts.  Nor will we be bound by EU regulation. There’s none of Theresa May’s nonsense about a ‘common rule book’. We will be free to determine our own standards. Who knows,