Politics Archives

Thursday

9 May 2019

May’s compromising position

Can Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn reach a satisfactory compromise on Brexit? The two leaders’ positions are not, in fact, that far apart. Neither wants a second referendum. They both think that the referendum result means that Britain has to leave the EU. Yet neither wants a dramatic rupture. They would prefer to inch away from the union. Gavin Barwell, Theresa May’s chief of staff, has remarked that half of what Labour has asked for in the cross-party Brexit talks has already been requested from the EU but to no avail. Even on customs, the standout issue, the differences between Labour and the Conservatives are more semantic than anything else.

Martin Vander Weyer

The truth behind Huawei is that all telecoms networks are insecure

On the matter of whether former defence secretary Gavin Williamson was the real ‘H’ in Line of Duty, I admit I may have lost the plot. But meanwhile the rest of the media has rather lost sight of the key issue with Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant whose involvement in UK 5G networks was allegedly opposed by Williamson and others at a National Security Council meeting chaired by the Prime Minister. The nub of this isn’t whether or not Huawei is closely linked to the Chinese government: let’s just say that objective China-watchers are unpersuaded by assurances to the contrary, while acknowledging an element of trade-war jingoism in the way US politicians bandy the accusation.

Rod Liddle

Are the village idiots right?

The former BBC presenter Gavin Esler has very kindly given us an insight into how BBC people think (had we been in much doubt). Esler, who is now standing for election as a member of the hilarious Change UK party, said the following: ‘TV news must stop giving airtime to the “village idiots” of Brexit — the dubious right-wing supposed “thinktanks” and pseudo-experts among ERG MPs who simply haven’t a clue what the implications of Brexit truly are.’ Remarkable, no? The ‘village idiots’ of Brexit are people who support Brexit. That’s a lot more idiots than there are villages, Gavin. This clown wishes the BBC to discriminate against people who are in favour of Brexit and stock the airwaves with people who are opposed to it.

Wednesday

8 May 2019

Daniel DePetris

In the Democratic primaries, the goal is to go viral

Everybody knows who Joe Biden is, the former six-term senator from Delaware and Barack Obama sidekick. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the white-haired, bespectacled, 77-year old with the Brooklyn ascent who gave Hillary Clinton fits four years ago, is up there too. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris have their fans in America; the former is a darling of the progressive movement, the latter was California’s top law enforcement official. Even the young Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of a mid-sized city in Indiana, is getting noticed. But what about Eric Swalwell, Seth Moulton, and Tim Ryan? What about John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, and Amy Klobuchar? And what about that guy named Andrew Wang, whoever he is?

James Forsyth

Will Theresa May bring her Brexit bill back to Parliament next week?

At tonight’s meeting of the 1922 Committee, Graham Brady told Tory MPs that Theresa May would see the executive of the Committee next week to discuss their request for more clarity on her departure plans. He also told Tory MPs that Theresa May was committed to making progress on the withdrawal agreement bill in the near future. I understand that this means an attempt at second reading before the European Elections on the 23rd of May. Now, if you are looking for a clue as to when this second reading might be attempted, consider that next Thursday is a three line whip for Tory MPs despite the fact that all that is currently scheduled is a general debate.

Steerpike

Listen: Mike Gapes caught out over Change UK funding

With less than a month to go until the European elections, and with Nigel Farage's new Brexit party surging in the polls, pressure is continuing to build on Change UK – The Independent Group, whose performance has been far less impressive than its rival. Seeking to change that, was Change UK MP Mike Gapes, who went on Iain Dale's LBC radio show to sell his party to the public. The former Labour MP started off strongly, by attacking the source of the Brexit Party's funds, saying: 'Well it'll be interesting to see the huge amounts of funding Nigel Farage has had from various dubious sources.

Lloyd Evans

Theresa May tries out a new Brexit delay excuse

PMQs began with Janet Daby calling for a mass-cull of the working-class. The Labour MP relayed the experience of an industrious constituent who already has two jobs, on zero-hour contracts, and seeks a third. ‘Ban zero hours contracts!’ she declared in outrage. Obviously she’s fed up with people working in her constituency. Much easier if they all starve to death. And with her policies they will. Labour leader Jeremy Corybn had good news about the NHS which he’d failed to interpret correctly. Forty per cent of staff last year, he said, had suffered ‘work-related stress’. This means that 60 per cent of them hadn't. Not a twinge, not a whisper of anxiety during 12 long months of underfunded chaos.

Katy Balls

Downing Street: Theresa May will not set an exit date

Is this the week the Prime Minister sets an exit date? Not if Theresa May has anything to do with it. May has been under pressure to set out a more specific timetable for her departure – regardless of whether or not she manages to pass a Brexit deal. The 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers last month decided not to change the rules to allow another confidence vote in May before December. However, after a very bad local election result and frustration over the Brexit process, the committee are meeting once again this afternoon where they will revisit the matter. There was talk that committee chair Graham Brady had told May to reveal a 'roadmap' for her departure ahead of the meeting – or be given one. However, May has done no such thing.

Stephen Daisley

It’s too late for the SNP to rein in the cybernats

‘It is better to ride the tiger's back than let it rip your throat out’ is reputedly how Tony Blair rationalised his close relationship with the Sun. The quote is thrown back at him by critics who imagine their preferred mode of politics untainted by tiger-riding. In fact, Blair is not alone: Bill Clinton rode the tiger of white male independents then spent much of his presidency pandering to them on crime, welfare and ‘values’. For the Liberal Democrats, it was post-Iraq Labour discontents and students, who brought them two million votes across two elections and who turned on them when they teamed up with the Tories and put up tuition fees.

Katy Balls

How would Andrea Leadsom fare in another Tory leadership contest?

Andrea Leadsom has become the latest Cabinet minister to suggest that they would like to succeed Theresa May as Prime Minister. After DfID Secretary Rory Stewart declared his own ambition for the top job, Leadsom used an appearance on Good Morning Britain this morning to reveal her interest. The Leader of the House of Commons says she is 'seriously considering' entering the race after her failed attempt the last time around: 'I've supported her for the last three years to get Brexit over the line. She has said she's going, so yes I am seriously considering standing.' In the 2016 leadership contest, Leadsom made it into the final two but later dropped out (following a row about comments she had made on motherhood) to pave the way for Theresa May to become Prime Minister.

Robert Peston

Tory-Labour Brexit talks are on the verge of collapse

Labour's negotiations on a Brexit pact with the Government may well be pronounced dead today – partly because the party is launching its EU elections manifesto tomorrow and would presumably need to say something about a possible pact other than "don't know". To be clear, there are more talks between the two sides this evening. But those involved tell me they have no expectation a breakthrough will be seized from the jaws of futility. Simultaneously Labour's leadership is consulting "all the elements" in and connected to the party, so there's no great backlash from MPs or union leaders as and when the hopes of a Brexit compromise are officially abandoned – which could happen tonight. Corbyn is, for example, meeting loyalist MPs later.

Nick Cohen

Which party will fight the rise of Nigel Farage?

Who will fight the British far right? The centre right, the left, the liberals? The European elections are giving Nigel Farage the chance to push for a catastrophic Brexit, and build a formidable and ugly nationalist movement. Yet allegedly serious politicians, who have a duty to oppose him, forget the national interest and their own self-interest and sit on their hands. Farage poses a mortal danger to the Conservative party. You would not guess it from the reaction of its leaders and PRs. They have provided no coherent argument against the Brexit party. Indeed, I have been hard-pressed to find any argument at all. Go to the Tories’ website and there is nothing. https://twitter.

Geoffrey Alderman

Is Jeremy Corbyn really anti-Semitic?

Is Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite? I began researching the answer to this question well before Danny Finkelstein’s recent revelation in the Times that eight years ago Corbyn had written a glowing foreword to a new edition of Imperialism: A Study, written by the radical economist John Atkinson Hobson, first published in 1902. Context is paramount. That’s why I feel obliged to censure Finkelstein’s exposé. We all know what Hobson thought of Jews and capitalism. But to conclude – as Finkelstein does – that in writing the foreword Corbyn had praised a 'deeply anti-Semitic book' is to give a totally false impression of what this influential study is actually about.

Tuesday

7 May 2019

Linden Kemkaran

What I learnt trying – and failing – to win election as a Tory councillor

"I'll say this for you love, you've picked a great time to go into politics!" The man on whose door I had knocked guffawed loudly before adding kindly, "but I admire you anyway, I shan't be voting this time, can't trust any of them, but good luck to you all the same." At least it was a friendly encounter. Not all of them were. My timing was impeccable. With the Brexit mess obscuring everything and Parliament in meltdown, I decided to stand in a marginal seat for District Council election. As a Conservative candidate. Demonstrating the same great timing back in the summer of 2008, bang on the eve of the financial crash, I used my BBC voluntary redundancy money to go into property development.

Steerpike

Which Tory MPs have apologised to Roger Scruton?

What does it mean to be a Conservative? It's a question that most of the Tory front bench might struggle to answer these days, but if they were looking for guidance, they could do worse than heading to a packed Emmanuel Centre in London this evening. There, author, journalist and Spectator Associate Editor Douglas Murray was joined by the philosopher and housing tsar Sir Roger Scruton, as they discussed the future of Conservatism. The pair covered a large amount of ground over the course of the evening, as they mulled over the reasons the Conservative Party had abandoned its right-wing roots, the left's advantage in communicating slogans, and the role of beauty, hope and love in modern Britain.

Steerpike

Change UK / TIG’s Twitter name gaffe

Whether it's the Remainer group's shambolic name change, it's bizarre choice of logo, or unwise decision to snub an electoral pact with the Lib Dems, Change UK / TIG has not exactly established a reputation for competence in the few months since it was founded. But it appears the group hasn't given up making new gaffes just yet. Following the political party's decision to change its name from the Independent Group to Change UK, it decided to update its Twitter handle today: from @TheIndGroup to the rather strange @ForChange_Now. Unfortunately, it seems the breakaway MPs didn't realise that someone might take over their old account handle once it had been vacated. And, in a matter of minutes, the @TheIndGroup account was hijacked by an individual campaigning for a hard Brexit.

Brendan O’Neill

What the ‘Stop Brexit’ brigade and Turkey’s Erdogan have in common

Guy Verhofstadt, the Brexit coordinator for the European Parliament, has got some front. This morning he slammed the decision to cancel the results of the municipal and mayoral elections that took place in Istanbul in March and to force the people of Istanbul to vote again. And yet Verhofstadt’s chums in the Remainer camp want to do exactly the same thing in the UK. Indeed this week Verhofstadt will visit London to campaign for the Lib Dems, whose slogan is ‘Stop Brexit’ and whose aim is to bring about a second referendum. Verhofstadt’s hypocrisy is staggering — he brands Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan a dictator for the overthrow of a democratic vote and yet he cosies up to British politicians who are hell-bent on overthrowing a democratic vote.

Robert Peston

When will Theresa May be removed by her party?

I understand Sir Graham Brady – chairman of the 1922 committee and therefore representative of all Tory MPs – expects to see Theresa May this afternoon and will receive a response from the PM to the request from the ‘22 executive for her to set out a binding, all-weather timetable for her resignation. Following the Tory humiliation in the local elections and the anticipated humiliation in the forthcoming EU elections, there is an expectation and hope among Tory MPs and her cabinet colleagues that she will announce a departure date that would allow Tory MPs to choose their shortlist of two candidates in June or July – which would then permit hustings of Tory members over the summer and the election of the new leader BEFORE Tory conference.

Stephen Daisley

An SNP politician’s lonely fight in the gender identity debate

Joan McAlpine is an unlikely rebel against the Scottish political establishment. The SNP MSP is chair of Holyrood’s culture and external affairs committee, a former parliamentary aide to Alex Salmond and a past editor of the Sunday Times Scotland. She has a reputation as a firebrand Nationalist and, in the interests of full disclosure, I have previously been disobliging about her in print. Her exile has been quick, brutal and, inevitably in these days of viewpoint-patrolling, the result of voicing an incorrect opinion. McAlpine is gender-critical, or, in the prosecutorial terms of her detractors, a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF).

Robert Peston

The cross-party Brexit talks are doomed to fail

In case you were in any doubt, there is zero chance of Labour and Jeremy Corbyn agreeing a Brexit deal with the Prime Minister, given that its central element is a pledge to keep the UK in the customs union till the next general election. The point is that Labour’s main criticism of Theresa May’s Brexit plan is that it is 'blind', that it makes gives no promises or commitments about the UK’s future relationship with the EU. And a pledge to keep the UK in the EU’s customs union only till 2022 would not turn blindness into perfect foresight. So May needs to commit to keeping the UK in the CU to stand any chance of an entente with Labour. Why won’t she offer that? Because to do so would split her party down the middle, and cause maximum chaos for her.