Politics Archives

Thursday

2 May 2019

Don’t blame Chris Packham for the shooting ban

Last week, on the first day of the government’s ban on farmers shooting pest birds, I walked across St James’s Park and came across a pigeon murdered by a crow. It was on its back, wings spread, with a nasty hole torn in its chest. It looked like a botch job by an amateur heart surgeon, or an allegory for the whole messy, sorry affair. The ban — a sudden revoking of the old general licences to shoot — was announced right in the middle of the crop-sowing season by Natural England, a semi-autonomous offshoot of Defra. It consulted no one and gave baffled farmers just a few days’ notice, insisting that this was the only possible course of action after lobbying group Wild Justice claimed the licences were illegal.

Wednesday

1 May 2019

Dominic Walsh

Would adding a customs union to the Brexit deal really be so bad?

It has been nearly a month since cross-party talks between the government and Labour began, and there is still no sign of white smoke. If the two sides do reach a deal, it is likely to involve movement from the government towards Labour’s key demand – negotiating a 'permanent' customs union with the EU after Brexit. Both the Telegraph and the Mail report this morning that the Prime Minister is inching towards a customs union, which she increasingly sees as the only way to get a version of her deal through parliament. There has already been a pre-emptive backlash against the idea. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has warned that 'there is a risk that you would lose more Conservative MPs than you would gain Labour MPs.

John Connolly

Former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya loses her seat

Fiona Onasanya, the former Labour politician convicted of perverting the course of justice, has been ousted as the MP for Peterborough, after the required number of constituents signed a recall petition to remove her from office. A by-election will now be fought in the constituency on 6 June. For Onasanya to be removed 6,967 people had to sign the recall petition – ten per cent of all eligible voters in the constituency. In the end that threshold was passed by a considerable margin, with 19,261 people heading to the ten 'signing places' across the constituency to call for her to go. This is the first time that this mechanism has been used to remove an MP since the laws were introduced in 2016.

Katy Balls

Penny Mordaunt gets the promotion she was tipped for two years ago

When Michael Fallon left government amid the 'pestminster' scandal two years ago, the expectation among Tory MPs was that Penny Mordaunt would be selected as his successor and moved to the Ministry of Defence. In the end, the role of Defence Secretary went to Gavin Williamson – who was seen as less qualified owing to the fact he had no military experience. Now Mordaunt has finally been given the job – following Theresa May's decision to sack Williamson over suspicions he was behind a leak from a meeting of the national security council. This makes Penny Mordaunt the UK’s first female defence secretary – departing her role in DfID – where she is succeeded by Rory Stewart. On paper, Mordaunt is well suited to the job.

Katy Balls

Gavin Williamson sacked, but denies guilt on Huawei leak. What went on?

Gavin Williamson has been sacked from government following an investigation into the Huawei leak from a meeting of the National Security Council – replaced by Penny Mordaunt. Announcing the decision, a Downing Street spokesperson said Theresa May had asked Williamson to leave government having 'lost confidence in his ability to serve in the role of Defence Secretary': 'The Prime Minister has this evening asked Gavin Williamson to leave the Government, having lost confidence in his ability to serve in the role of Defence Secretary and as a member of her Cabinet. The Prime Minister’s decision has been informed by his conduct surrounding an investigation into the circumstances of the unauthorised disclosure of information from a meeting of the National Security Council.

Steerpike

Theresa May: ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ stance was ‘abstract’

Theresa May once said that 'no deal is better than a bad deal', but did she really mean it? The Prime Minister was asked to clarify those comments in front of MPs this afternoon. May said that while she stuck by what she said at Lancaster House in January 2017, she was actually 'talking in the abstract': 'I stand by the references I have made in the past, that 'no deal is better than a bad deal', but I happen to think we have a good deal. When I first made that reference, I was talking in the abstract. We now are no longer talking in the abstract. We are talking against the background of a negotiated deal, hard-fought, which I believe is a good deal for the United Kingdom.' Mr Steerpike is glad that May has finally cleared that up. The Prime Minister didn't stop there though.

Lloyd Evans

Theresa May flounders horribly at PMQs

Best mates on Brexit, deadly foes on everything else. The highly suspicious search for a Lab/Con Brexit accord was suspended today as the party leaders exchanged blows at PMQs. These covert ‘talks’ are clearly a blackmail effort contrived in Downing Street. By threatening her MPs with a Labour-backed Customs Union, Theresa May hopes to secure their support for her thrice-rejected withdrawal agreement. It might just work. The EU wasn’t mentioned at PMQs but the Labour leader found alternative sources of distress. ‘Things are getting worse,’ he crowed at the Prime Minister as he ran through a hit-parade of sob-stories: inequality, malnutrition, rising crime, falling police numbers and care-home failures.

Isabel Hardman

Pointless PMQs shows up the government’s powerlessness

Most MPs' minds are elsewhere at the moment, with the local elections on Thursday and the European elections looming at the end of the month. Many of them were physically elsewhere at today's Prime Minister's Questions, which took place in a sparsely-populated Chamber with little atmosphere. A low rumble of bored chattering accompanied Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn's exchanges, which lacked the usual political fire and fury of sessions held right before a poll. Neither of them really bothered to engage in exchanges, instead reeling off poorly-planned lines about social mobility, life expectancy and social care. The Prime Minister produced one of the worst jokes of her premiership when she told Corbyn that he should have welcomed the anniversary of the union between England and Scotland.

Steerpike

Corbyn’s office targeted by anti-Brexit protestors

How is Jeremy Corbyn's Brexit position landing with his constituents? On Tuesday, Labour's National Executive Committee came under pressure to change policy to campaign for a second referendum. However, they instead agreed to stick with the current Brexit fudge of keeping a second referendum merely on the table as an option if other plans failed. It's a decision that won't please everyone in Corbyn's pro-EU Islington constituency. A friend of Mr S noticed something rather interesting while on their run this week. Someone had redecorated the front door and windows of Corbyn's constituency office with some bright yellow posters: Emblazoned with some colourful slogans including "Jez needs to grow a pair" and "No deal is nuts, Jez!

David Butterfield

Cambridge’s slavery inquiry will raise more questions than it answers

Can the past hold the present to ransom? Can we be culpable for our predecessors’ actions? Knotty questions of this kind have long been debated in British universities. But now these abstractions are finding new and controversial expression. Yesterday, the University of Cambridge made headlines by launching an academic investigation into its historical relationship – direct or otherwise – with the slave trade. The panel will spend two years scrutinising whether Cambridge profited from ‘the Atlantic slave trade and other forms of coerced labour during the colonial era’. For academics, the enquiry will certainly be interesting. But serious problems inevitably arise when historical discoveries are deemed to have moral consequence for the present.

Steerpike

Liz Truss shows solidarity with Diane Abbott

Liz Truss and Diane Abbott are an unlikely pair. One is a champion of free markets while the other is a true Corbynista. However, of late the Chief Treasury to the Secretary has managed to find common cause with the shadow home secretary. Speaking at a Freer think tank event last night with fellow freedom lovers James Cleverly and Steve Baker in the audience, Truss spoke of the importance of fighting over-interference of the state into people's daily lives – and that includes Abbott's recent decision to disobey London transport rules and drink an M&S mojito on the overground: 'When we try to micromanage people’s lives, we take away the freedoms that are crucial for them to feel in control. Freedom is the ability to make choices that others disapprove of.

Claire Fox

David Lammy inspired me to stand for the Brexit Party

I am standing as Brexit Party candidate in the forthcoming EU elections. The response of voters so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Phew. Here’s a chance to demonstrate that the shambles that parliament has made of delivering on a referendum mandate will be challenged by a democratic fightback. It really is exciting. But, I admit, deciding to stand was rather more nerve wracking, and sent shockwaves among my peers. *** “Why on earth rock the boat, it could ruin your life and career?”. Just one of the incredulous warning notes sent to me when a friend heard I was considering standing. I certainly had doubts about throwing my hat in the electoral ring.

Tuesday

30 April 2019

Borja Vilar

The remarkable rise of Vox: Spain’s right-wing underdogs

Madrid, Spain Vox, the right-wing political underdog, received 10 per cent of all votes in the Spanish general elections on Sunday. Just three years ago, they didn’t have a single seat in parliament. Now, they have 24. To understand what has made them so popular, despite the vitriol they have received from all quarters, one has to look back to last year and understand the developments which have taken place in Spain since then. Back in June 2018, a no-confidence vote saw the then-Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy step down in favour of Pedro Sanchez, leader of the centre-left Socialist party (PSOE).

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn wins his Brexit showdown with Tom Watson

Jeremy Corbyn has again shown his power over the structures of the Labour party by winning today's national executive committee showdown over its European elections manifesto. A faction of MPs, led by Tom Watson and backed by the GMB, Unison, Usdaw and TSSA unions, had hoped to change party policy to support for a confirmatory referendum on any Brexit deal that Parliament comes up with. But Corbyn and the Unite union had opposed this, and this afternoon, they came out on top.

Stephen Daisley

Anas Sarwar and the case that shames Labour

Jews are familiar with the malice, prejudice and stupidity that governs the Labour Party’s complaints process when it comes to anti-Semitism. They will find no comfort in the news that other allegations of racism get short shrift too, even when the complainant is a prominent Labour politician. The party has said there is no case to answer against a councillor accused of telling Labour MSP Anas Sarwar that Scotland wasn’t ready to vote for a ‘Paki’. The incident is alleged to have occurred in 2017, when Sarwar contested the Scottish leadership against left-wing union fixer (and eventual victor) Richard Leonard. Sarwar went public with his claim and Davie McLachlan, then Labour leader on South Lanarkshire Council, was suspended.

Isabel Hardman

The Government wants Brexit talks to end next week. But can they end well?

Will the cross-party Brexit talks ever end? They seem to have been going on for almost as long as the negotiations to get Britain out of the European Union, and with a similar lack of anything for either side to boast about. Yesterday, David Lidington said he was 'encouraged by the sense in the room today about the need to inject greater urgency into this', which was read by some as a sign that a breakthrough might be imminent. This seems a rather hopeful reading of what is essentially an admission that everyone has been faffing around a lot, but members of the Labour negotiating team also believe the government might shift on some of its red lines. Lidington updated the cabinet on the talks when it met today.

James Kirkup

Clever Tories admit capitalism isn’t perfect

One of the many things that has been neglected in the Conservative Party because of all-consuming Brexit is a meaningful debate about markets and business. Confronted with a Labour leader offering a clear critique of capitalism as a “rigged” system and outflanked by Nigel Farage telling a remarkably similar story about big money financing a self-regarding elite, the Tories have generally offered two responses. Both are flawed. On one hand are those who think the answer to complaints about the economy is to yell about Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman and sometimes Singapore. Liz Truss has become the most prominent advocate of what Stian Westlake rather brilliantly calls “live-action role-playing Thatcherism”.

Steerpike

Tom Watson ‘storms out’ of a Labour shadow cabinet meeting

Today is a key crunch point for Labour, as the party rules on whether it will fully endorse a second Brexit referendum ahead of the EU elections next month. Until now, the party has been happy to stick with its tortuously worded conference Brexit policy, which both sides on the referendum debate have said backs their own position. But with election leaflets ready to print, the party has finally been forced to put its policy on paper. Already though, it appears the process is causing rifts within the party. The Mirror's Pippa Crerar reports that deputy leader Tom Watson, who backs a second Brexit vote, has just stormed out of a shadow cabinet meeting, after Labour's EU policy was displayed on a big television screen, rather than on paper.

Robert Peston

Brexit is beginning to split the Labour left wing

Brexit is fomenting a significant split in the alliance of Labour left-wing activists that keeps Jeremy Corbyn in power, because of his and the party leadership’s reluctance to commit to hold a referendum on any Brexit deal. A senior and influential activist told me: 'Discussions are under way between leading Momentum activists, anti-Brexit MPs and campaign groups about a new process for drawing up a left slate for this year's NEC election.' What this means, he said, is that there would no longer be a joint slate of candidates put forward by Momentum and the much older hard-left campaigning group, the Campaign for Local Democracy, or CPLD, which was Corbyn’s ideological and spiritual home for decades.

Katy Balls

The message behind Labour’s latest party broadcast | 30 April 2019

As the Tories set expectations low for Thursday's local elections, Labour is in campaign mode. The party has released its third and final party political broadcast ahead of this week's votes. The theme of the short film is investment vs austerity attempting to lay out the reasoning behind the Labour slogan 'for the many not the few'. In it, a host offers five members of the public money back that they lost as a result of Tory austerity. Meanwhile, a billionaire is given a £20,000 tax cut. The film goes on to suggest that only the 'ordinary' people put the money back in the community – while the billionaire barely notices it and moves it abroad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?