Uk politics

Monday

James Forsyth

Whipping up a storm | 24 October 2011

It looks like about a third of Tory backbenchers will rebel in tonight’s vote on an EU referendum. 18 months into government, this is a massive rebellion and one that should make the Prime Minister think again about his style of party management. Those in Number 10 who claim that many of the rebels will ‘never be happy’ are missing the point that, while there may be a hardcore of MPs keen to rebel, many more are reluctant rebels who feel they have been pushed into it by Cameron’s failure to engage with the party on the whole issue of Europe. One reluctant rebel said to me over the weekend:

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Dave’s EU opportunity

Lucky David Cameron. His chance to repatriate powers from the EU will come sooner than he thought. Now the latest EU summit is over, it looks as if there will indeed be change to the Lisbon Treaty — the very document that the Prime Minister and William Hague promised Britain a referendum on. Last night, Herman Van Rompuy said that EU leaders had promised to “explore the possibility of limited change” in the weekend talks. Germany since confirmed that provisions for “limited treaty change” were included in the conclusions. We all know what that means. Indeed, here are the Prime Minister’s words: “Treaty change can only happen if it is

Peter Hoskin

Your scorecard for today’s EU referendum vote

I hope you adjusted your calendars accordingly, CoffeeHousers. The parliamentary debate and vote on an EU referendum starts at 1600 today — and what morbid fun it promises to be too. Fresh from being bawled out by Nicolas Sarkozy at the weekend, David Cameron is returning to London to be bawled out by a significant proportion of his own party. And while the Tory leadership is certain to defeat David Nuttall’s Eurosceptic motion, it will not avoid being wounded in the process. Most of the wounds have already been self-inflicted. By way of a scorecard for the coming bloodsport, I’d recommend that you read the two posts by parliamentary experts

Sunday

Jonathan Jones

Gaddafi’s death boosts support for Libya intervention

In August, I showed that the rebels’ success in toppling Gaddafi’s regime had boosted British support for the intervention in Libya – and David Cameron’s handling of it. Unsurprisingly, this week’s news appears to have done the same. Even though Gaddafi’s death was not an explicit goal of the intervention, it seems to have been many people’s definition of success. 62 per cent now say the military action is “going well”, up sharply from 46 per cent last week: As a result, 45 per cent now support the decision to take military action, while only 31 per cent think it was wrong – the lowest opposition since the start of

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Tory Wars, redux

Even after reading Jonathan’s post, I struggle to see the strategy in David Cameron’s position with his party over Europe. The motion is non-binding, and Miliband has three-line-whipped his party to vote against so there was zero chance of the motion passing. It is the result of a petition to parliament, so you can’t write this off as the idea of a few Tory MPs in the tearooms. Cameron should have said: “Sure, guys, have your vote. It’s a backbench motion, so the government won’t take part and as you know I’ve booked a trip abroad next Thursday anyway so I won’t be here. But I was serious when I

Jonathan Jones

Cameron’s strategy is better than it looks

The number of Tory MPs set to defy the government in the vote on an EU referndum tomorrow now stands at around 90, and numerous backbenchers – including John Redwood and David Davis – have called on the Prime Minister to drop the three-line whip. Even though he is certain to win the vote, many are already accusing Cameron of “blundering” and mismanaging this affair. But others are now suggesting that Cameron is in fact displaying a great deal of political nous by taking on the hardline Eurosceptics in his party. In the Indepednent, John Rentoul declares that “Cameron is the one who will emerge victorious and strengthened” from tomorrow’s debate:  “He will win

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Liddington: EU vote should follow a new treaty

David Liddington, the Europe Minister, has just told the Murnaghan Show that the moment for a referendum on the European Union is once a treaty change has been agreed. Liddington argued that then everyone would know what they were voting on. This is quite a significant shift in the government’s position. Up to now, the position has been that there would only be a referendum if yet more powers were transferred from Westminster to Brussels. Liddington appeared to be saying that a vote would follow any new treaty, even one that brought powers back. This moves the government far closer to a position of renegotiation followed by a referendum. If

Saturday

Douglas Murray

The End of a Delusion

The sight of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi blood-stained and bewildered, pulled around by a crowd in the final moments of his life is not a sight that will cause much pity. For more than four decades he had none for those Libyans whom he repressed and killed — anymore than he had for the victims on Pan Am Flight 103, his other multiple acts of terrorism, or his pointless and bloody interventions across Africa. Yet there is something pitiful about it: perhaps most obviously because watching his end is to watch the end of a delusion. Even more than Saddam Hussein crawling out of a hole in the ground and saying

James Forsyth James Forsyth

More fuel for the EU rebellion

Today’s Daily Express poll will add to the sense of momentum that the Tory rebels are feeling ahead of Monday’s vote. The fact that 81 per cent of Tory voters want their MP to vote for the motion will make it harder for the whips to dissuade those who are inclined to vote for the motion. The poll results also demonstrate that only a small percentage of the public would vote for the country’s current set-up with the European Union if they had the chance. Only 15 per cent would vote to stay in, compared to 28 per cent who would vote to leave, while 47 per cent would plump

Friday

James Forsyth

Eustice: If the government won’t back my amendment, I’ll vote for the EU referendum motion

George Eustice’s comments just now that if the government doesn’t support his amendment  to the EU referendum motion, then he’s “minded” to vote for the original motion is a sign of how Downing Street is losing the parliamentary party on this issue at an alarming rate. Eustice having been press secretary to David Cameron is not an instinctive rebel nor can he be being accused of motivated by personal animus.   Equally telling is Eustice’s saying that he’s being pushed towards supporting the motion because “the government’s not going to deal with the party in a responsible way on this”. This is a sign of just how fed up normally

Matthew Sinclair

How to untie the tax knot

Yet another HMRC scandal this week, as a new HMRC computer discovered millions who have paid too much or too little in tax. A letter from the tax man will land on their doorstep in the next few months. Some will enjoy the dubious pleasure of getting money back that should never have been taken in the first place. Others face the painful task of finding the money to catch-up on tax they didn’t pay before.   As Pete said in his post on Wednesday, this isn’t the first time. When the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee looked at similar problems last year, they said that the Department had

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The austerity myth

CoffeeHousers may remember an odd New York Times editorial recently where they tried to blame the evaporation of British economic growth on austerity. Perhaps the newspapers’s famed fact-checkers had taken the day off, because the slightest piece of research would have exposed the premises of the piece as bunkum. This morning, the ONS has produced monthly public finance figures, showing current spending is still rising in Britain. But first, let’s get to the New York Times editorial: “Greece, which has been forced into induced recession by misguided European Union creditors, Britain has inflicted this harmful quack cure on itself… Austerity was a deliberate ideological choice by Prime Minister David Cameron’s

Thursday

James Forsyth

Cameron unmoved by the Eustice amendment

Sources in Number 10 tell me that the party leaderships feels it cannot support the Eustice amendment. They stress that it is not Conservative party policy. But I also detect a sense that there is no point even considering backing it as the Lib Dems would never accept renegotiation followed by a referendum being government policy. If Number 10 continues to be inflexible, it will have a sizable rebellion on its hands. Tory MPs — especially those who think they might have a reselection fight on their hands, and that’s a lot of them thanks to the boundary review — want something to take back to their constituencies. A hardening

Jonathan Jones

The Spending Review, one year on

It’s been a year since the Coalition’s Comprehensive Spending Review, but the public is in no mood to celebrate its anniversary. As the economy has failed to recover – GDP was no higher in June this year than at the time of the Review – sentiment has turned against the government. The latest YouGov polling shows that just one-in-three think the government is handling the economy well, against 58 per cent who say “badly”. At the time of the Spending Review, the public was split evenly on this question. Similarly, just 33 per cent think the government’s spending cuts are good for the economy, while half say they’re bad. But

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Amendment to EU referendum vote put down

Tonight, George Eustice, David Cameron’s former press secretary, and several other eurosceptic members of the 2010 intake have put down an amendment to the EU referendum motion that will be put on Monday. The amendment reads: “This House calls upon the government to publish a White Paper during the next session of Parliament setting out the powers and competences that the government would seek to repatriate from the EU, to commence the renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU, and to put the outcome of those negotiations to a national referendum.” As I said before, this renegotiate-referendum strategy is Cameron’s best chance of heading off a full-scale rebellion on Monday,

Daniel Korski

The Colonel’s end

After more than 40 years of murderous rule and months fighting his own people, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has finally been caught, and killed, in his hometown of Sirte. This marks the end of the formal struggle against the Colonel’s regime, and, as such, is a great event for all Libyans. But Col Gaddafi’s death does create some complications for the new Libyan authorities. They have avoided a drawn-out judicial drama — like Slobodan Milosevic’s — which could have rallied people in the ex-dictator’s support. But his death also robs the new Libyan government of an opportunity to show that they are better than he was, by allowing a process of

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron needs an amendment – and fast

A third of Tory backbenchers have now signed the EU referendum motion. Worryingly for the whips, this isn’t the limit to this motion’s appeal. There are several Tories who plan to come out for it on Monday and one PPS, Stewart Jackson, has already made clear that he’s prepared to resign over the matter if necessary. Last night, Number 10 sources told me that they would be interested in a compromise amendment. But I think the Cameron operation will have to offer more than they were planning to. What’s needed to head off this rebellion is a commitment to renegotiation at the first available opportunity followed by a referendum on

Peter Hoskin

Cable can’t make any promises

Did you realise that today is the first anniversary of the government’s Spending Review? Neither did I until the politicians started making a fuss about it, starting with Vince Cable on the TV last night. We’ll post video footage of the Business Secretary’s performance when we can, but this write-up here just about covers it. He made a few earcatching remarks — among them that “we didn’t know that there would be a major crisis in our export markets and that energy prices would shoot up” — but one has captured the headlines more than any other. Asked whether he could promise that we wouldn’t experience a double-dip recession, Cable

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron starts playing catch-up over the EU referendum vote

Adjust your calendars, CoffeeHousers. The parliamentary vote on an EU referendum is no longer set for next Thursday. As the Mail’s James Chapman revealed this evening, Downing Street has moved it forward to Monday so that David Cameron and William Hague can both attend. They would have been away on government business otherwise. What to make of this hasty measure? I suppose it could feasibly be seen as a scare tactic on the part of No.10: strengthening the current three line whip by making it very clear that Dave Is Watching You. But it’s far more likely that Cameron is appearing in order to set out the sorts of concessions

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The government’s never-ending European problem

We thought CoffeeHousers might appreciate an advanced viewing of James’ political column from tomorrow’s issue of The Spectator, so here it is: In the hours after the coalition was formed last May, a minister and a group of Tory MPs sat around a table in a parliamentary cafeteria discussing what it all meant. One new MP said to the minister that it was a pity that, in the course of the talks, the Tories had agreed to ‘park Europe for the next five years’. The minister, high on the Panglossian spirit of the early days of the coalition, reassured her that this was for the best. The party could devote