Uk politics

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

A response to David Smith’s economic case for Remain

When it comes to making economics understandable, no one does it better that David Smith of the Sunday Times*. Today, he has written a emphatic endorsement of the case for the UK remaining in the EU. As a longstanding admirer of his work, a few points jumped out at me when reading it. Here they are. Britain’s economy is convalescing from the biggest financial shock in a century. A few years ago we were on the edge of the abyss. We live in the shadow of the crisis. One shock was careless: to impose another, self-inflicted one before we’re over it would be stupid. Yes, you can argue that now

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Corbyn’s immigration honesty creates a problem for Remain

Jeremy Corbyn went on The Marr Show this morning to talk about Jo Cox’s tragic death and the EU referendum. Corbyn talked movingly about Cox and how MPs don’t want to be cut off from the communities that they serve. The conversation then moved on to the EU referendum. Andrew Marr asked Corbyn if he thought there should be an upper limit on immigration. Corbyn replied, rightly, ‘I don’t think you can have one while you have free movement of labour’. Now, this is true. But it very much isn’t the Remain campaign script; David Cameron has even refused to admit that his ambition to reduce immigration to the tens

Saturday

Douglas Murray

Can’t we show some decency about Jo Cox’s death?

Despite the ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ campaigns rightly halting as soon as the news of the savage murder of Jo Cox MP came through, some people could not pass up the opportunity to press what they saw as a political advantage.  The campaign for Britain to leave the EU may have been silent, but EU officials were not.  A day after the murder the German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a call for all sides in the referendum to respect the opinions of others: ‘Otherwise, the radicalisation will become unstoppable.  Exaggerations, and radicalisation of part of the language, do not help foster an atmosphere of respect.’ Was she thinking of European Council

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris makes it clear he isn’t interested in a coup against David Cameron

The murder of Jo Cox was a moment that leaves you numb; an MP paying the ultimate price for the open society we live in. For the fact that our representatives live and work among us. Despite this tragedy, democracy must go on. By this time next week, the EU referendum will be over. The country will have made up its mind. Whether it is Leave or Remain, the UK will need a period of stability. This means David Cameron staying on as Prime Minister and, as I reveal in The Sun today, plans are already well advanced to ensure that this happens. Boris Johnson has signed a letter saying

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Brexit still barely half as likely as Remain, say bookmakers

The campaigning has been halted, as the country mourns the death of Jo Cox, but the financial markets have continued and indicate that a Remain vote is significantly more likely than Leave. The pound has been rising sharply (it would likely fall in the event of Brexit) and the betting markets how suggest that a Remain vote is almost twice as likely as Brexit. The Spectator’s Live Odds chart is below, and will update every time you revisit the page. That said, the bookmakers have been wrong before (this time last year they gave Donald Trump a 2pc chance of winning the Republican nomination) and the last few published polls give a clear lead

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Why MPs will keep holding surgeries, even if they’re in danger

‘If you’ve got water coming in through the roof then they should be doing something about that,’ says Stephen Timms mildly to one of his constituents. The East Ham MP is sitting in the middle of a long row of tables in the Town Hall, flanked by two caseworkers, each seeing a member of the public who has a problem they hope their MP can solve. Timms had kindly invited me to sit in on one of his surgeries months ago. I’m currently criss-crossing the country watching politicians of all political persuasions carry out their regular constituency work for a book that I’m writing on what MPs really do –

Thursday

Rod Liddle

RIP Jo Cox. Let’s call the referendum off as a mark of respect

RIP Jo Cox MP. A hugely talented young politician possessed of great clarity of thought and principle. Shot and stabbed by a piece of human filth, a piece of white human filth, while attending her surgery in West Yorkshire. God bless the woman and look after her family, please. This sort of savagery and vileness has been on the cards now for quite a while. We are drifting towards the febrile territory of a banana republic, or at best the USA. The claims on either side of the Brexit debate are hyperbolic, exaggerated, idiotic. And the mutual loathing spreads daily across social media, a shrieking absolutism divorced from reality on

Alex Massie Alex Massie

A Day of Infamy

Events have a multiplier effect. And when they come in bunches the effect can be overpowering. This was already a sad and demeaning day, even before we heard the ghastly news a Labour MP, Jo Cox, had been murdered outside her constituency surgery in Yorkshire. Politics is, figuratively speaking, a contact sport. It is a hard business because it is an important business. It matters and it matters even more when the stakes are so very high. But just as class will out at the highest level in sport, when the stakes are the very greatest and everything seems to be on the line, so character reveals itself in politics

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The Brexit debate has exposed the Establishment

Yesterday, on the Thames, in a bizarre battle of political flotillas, we got a glimpse of the elite rage that motors much of the Remain camp. On one of the pro-EU boats, Bob Geldof, a knight, superbly well-connected, who has earned millions, made wanker gestures and gave a two-fingered eff-you to the people on the anti-EU boats — who were mainly fishermen whose livelihoods have been wrecked by Brussels. One of these fishermen, his face ashen with desperation, shouted — almost cried, in fact — about earning £50 a week and not knowing where his next mortgage payment is going to come from, largely thanks to EU regulations on the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Remain is now Project Grouch in the EU referendum

A couple of months ago, the Leave campaign seemed constantly grumpy, complaining about media coverage, colleagues and the use of the government machine in this referendum. But now, with just a week to go until polling day, this seems to have reversed. The Brexiteers’ continuing poll lead has spooked Remain, and Remain really isn’t dealing with it all that well. It wasn’t just the way that the pro-Remain politicians ganged up on Boris Johnson during their TV debate last week. And it isn’t just the way that government ministers including George Osborne seem to be resorting to increasingly desperate interventions such as a scary Brexit Budget that disgusted so many

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Sir Mike Rake is Brexit’s best weapon

I keep telling myself that the polls showing Leave ahead are too good to be true. But then I see Remain’s latest efforts and feel reassured. One of its earliest campaigners was the self-important businessman Sir Mike Rake who, I wrote at the time, is pure gold for Leave. This week he pops up again, ordering his Rolls-Royce workers to vote to preserve his seat at the top table. Keep talking, Sir Mike: until 23 June, we need to see much more of these hard-faced men who have done well out of Brussels. This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes. The full article can be found here. 

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Leave six points ahead in latest phone poll

Fraser Nelson and Nick Cohen discuss The Spectator’s decision to back Brexit: The Ipsos MORI phone poll released this morning shows a dramatic turnaround since its last poll which had a double digit advantage for Remain. Leave is now six points ahead amongst those likely to vote. This means that Leave has been ahead in 7 out of the last 10 polls and 2 of the last 4 phone polls. Almost as worrying for the Remain campaign as the headline number is what the internals of the Ipsos MORI poll show. In a change from last month, immigration is now the top issue for people in this referendum, overtaking the

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Has England gone mad?

In the final, frenzied, all-things-seem-possible days of the Scottish referendum on independence – the days when it seemed there was something in the air and perhaps the water too – some people outside Scotland began to ask a disconcerting question: Has Scotland gone mad?  Scots, whether Unionist or Nationalist, disliked the question but while their huffiness was both predictable and understandable, not least because the question was often posed in ways that didn’t exactly flatter the Scots, the question itself was not as lunatic as it might have seemed. Or, rather, it was a telling question. Because, while Scotland thrilled to the drama of a referendum that was one part national awakening and

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

George Osborne threatens to punish voters with tax rises if they defy him on Brexit

The polls are tight, so George Osborne has a cunning plan. He’ll present a “Brexit budget” where he will spell out how he’ll punish voters if they vote to leave the European Union. He’ll be forced to tear up his election pledge not to raise taxes: the voters will have provoked him, you see. Pushed him too far.  He has all kind of sums in mind, that they won’t like one bit, starting with an extra 2p on the basic rate of income tax. Fuel duty will rise. The higher rate of income tax will go up 3p. Another 5 per cent on alcohol and fuel duties. Then £2 billion off

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tom Watson dumps all over David Cameron’s EU renegotiation deal

Tom Watson’s comments today that a future government would have to try to reform freedom of movement rules in the European Union are clearly a last-ditch attempt to show the party’s voters that it is taking their anger about immigration seriously. But they are also strange, for three reasons. The first is that it is strange to be talking about a future renegotiation when the Remain campaign does still occasionally try to persuade voters that they are voting to stay in a reformed European Union. By talking about what more needs to be done, Watson is effectively dumping all over the renegotiation that David Cameron has already carried out, saying that

Toby Young Toby Young

Brexit: Facts Not Fear

I’ve made a short film with my friend Roger Bowles about why I’ll be voting Leave on 23 June and why I think you should, too. We’ve focused exclusively on the sovereignty argument, which we think is the most persuasive one. If you’re on the same side as us, please share this with as many people as possible. We’ve called it ‘Brexit: Facts Not Fear’ because we think it’s important that people should be acquainted with as many facts as possible when they cast their vote. Below is a transcript of the film, with links corroborating the facts referred to. Hi. I’m Toby Young, I’m an associate editor of the

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Sadiq Khan’s advert ban shows he is an illiberal censor at heart

Six weeks ago I was one of the 1.3 million Londoners who voted for Sadiq Khan as mayor. Boy do I regret it now. Because he’s just shown what he really thinks of us inhabitants of the capital: that we’re so mentally fragile, so pathetic, so vulnerable to the wicked charms of advertisers, that he must censor allegedly sexist ads on our behalf and protect us from offence. In proposing a blanket ban on bus and Tube ads that make people feel bad about their bodies, Sadiq has revealed his authoritarian, paternalistic contempt for the people who swept him to power. I’m amazed there isn’t more fury about his extraordinary

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Pro-Leave Tories are storing up trouble for their party with spending pledges

The Leave campaign is doing well at the moment: taking a lead in the polls and spooking the government no end. But is it getting rather carried away with its success? This morning on the Today programme Priti Patel gave a rather awkward interview about the campaign’s spending priorities in the event of a Brexit that made it sound rather as though Brexiteers were one party with a manifesto for domestic policy, rather than a cross-party campaign group pushing for one thing, which is for Britain to leave the European Union. https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/priti-patel-discusses-the-leave-campaigns-eu-spending-promise The Employment Minister told Mishal Husain that ‘we have said that we would spend British taxpayers’ money on

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why Leave is looking so comfortable in the EU referendum

We are definitely now in squeaky bum territory in the EU referendum. Leave has a seven point lead in today’s Times/YouGov poll, while yesterday the Guardian/ICM poll put Leave six points ahead. Meanwhile the Sun has splashed on its backing for Leave. It isn’t a huge surprise that the Sun is supporting Britain leaving the European Union, given the stance it has taken in its leading articles over the past few months. But the newspaper still clearly sees that there is momentum behind Brexit, and that it will not look foolish or out of touch with its readers in supporting it. And that is what should worry David Cameron. John Curtice

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Who is to blame for Labour’s lacklustre ‘In’ campaign?

Gordon Brown is busy trying to reset the Remain campaign with a rather leftier tone today. As Tom writes, Labour voters are far less solid in their support for Britain staying in the European Union than the party had hoped, and so the campaign is being handed over to the party so that it can have a proper go at telling its voters that it supports staying in (something not all of them have yet noticed). A group of 20 Labour MPs has also penned a letter pleading for more airtime for Labour voices. It argues: ‘The impact of a leave vote will be catastrophic for the British people. Mainstream