Uk politics

I have a friend who insists that he takes little interest in politics. Even so, the other evening he came out with three sentences which take us straight to the heart of our present discontents. ‘I’m sick to death of talking about Brexit. Yet I can’t stop talking about Brexit. Why don’t the politicians just sort it all out?’ I told him that he was speaking for about seventy-five per cent of the electorate, but that neither he nor they should get their hopes up. Each day has been bringing a fresh instalment of confusion worse confounded. There is no reason to believe that this will shortly cease. It may

This evening, Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee has started to discuss a motion which would oust Tom Watson as deputy leader. There is expected to be a vote on this plan, which abolishes the role altogether, tomorrow, and there is a strong chance that it will pass. It was tabled by Momentum founder Jon Lansman, and was narrowly ruled out of order because Watson wasn’t present at tonight’s meeting. Tomorrow it will be in order. Why is Labour having this battle on the eve of its autumn conference? It is potentially weeks away from an election, and instead of facing outwards to voters, it is engaged in an internecine battle

William Hazlitt said hypocrisy is the only unforgivable vice. He would surely have a field day with our current crop of politicians. But perhaps the worst of the bunch is Caroline Lucas. The Green MP responded to the Liberal Democrat’s promise to overturn Article 50 without even a further referendum by saying: Lucas is partly correct: the Lib Dem’s policy move is remarkable in its audaciousness. Jo Swinson recently told us that she could never forgive David Cameron for his decision to have an in-out EU referendum, conveniently forgetting the fact that she herself called for such a referendum back in 2008 and that nearly all Lib Dem MPs voted

Labour has yet again shown it doesn’t care about its Jewish members. Jeremy Corbyn said earlier this year that “there is no place for anti-Semitism or any form of racism in the Labour party”. But not for the first time – and not for the last – Jews who still belong to the party have been sidelined.  The latest cause for disquiet is the decision yesterday by the party’s National Executive Committee. Not content with scrapping the party’s student wing ahead of next week’s gathering in Brighton, the NEC has now agreed new rules concerning the handling of allegations of anti-Semitism and disciplinary procedures for expelling members. Yet it has done so

The shape of the Brexit fix that Boris Johnson wants from the EU’s 27 leaders is now clear. Here it is: In place of the dreaded backstop – that insurance policy for keeping open the border on the island of Ireland hated by most Tory Brexiters and Northern Ireland’s DUP – Johnson is suggesting: a) A unified single market for agriculture between Northern Ireland and the Republic (a single set of what are known are sanitary and phytosanitary rules), so that cross border flows of livestock and food is not hindered; b) Customs and limited unintrusive goods standards checks on the island but away from the border itself; c) No customs union with the EU for either the whole

I am told Jean-Claude Juncker learned just one thing from Boris Johnson on Monday in Luxembourg. In the words of one of his colleagues there was “confirmation that the UK (under Johnson) wants more of a border on the island of Ireland than the previous government”. Which is the nutshell of the whole of what the PM seeks qua new deal and what the EU’s 27 leaders need to evaluate either as deft compromise or as brutal betrayal of Dublin and the Good Friday Agreement. This dispute harks back to the December 2017 joint agreement between the UK and EU which pledges to prevent the creation of “a hard border including any physical infrastructure