Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Thursday

Steerpike

Watch: fireworks in the Chamber between Bercow and Leadsom

Oh dear, it seems as if the pressure placed on John Bercow after he blocked a third meaningful vote on May's Brexit deal, may have gotten to the Speaker's head as of late. In the Chamber today, Bercow appeared visibly angry when he apparently spied an MP behaving in a partisan way, and launched into this tirade against them: 'Let's grow up. Do grow up. For goodness sake, this is not a matter of party political hackery. Let's have some seriousness of purpose and mutual respect... For goodness sake, let's raise the level.' This in turn prompted Bercow's arch-rival, the leader of the house Andrea Leadsom, to respond that she thought: 'Mr Speaker may I just say that your response does not raise the level. But I'll leave it there.

Robert Peston

What Kwasi Kwarteng’s leaked notes tell us about No. 10’s Brexit strategy

I’ve been passed copies of media briefing notes prepared for the junior Brexit minister Kwasi Kwarteng, who this morning did a round of TV and radio interviews. My source is a political one, not another hack or media person, which I point out to prevent any suspicion that a media company is behaving badly by passing me the document. What is striking – and important – is that Kwarteng has been instructed, presumably by Downing Street, to avoid saying that MPs face a choice between backing the PM’s deal and a no-deal Brexit, even though that is how the PM and the EU’s president Donald Tusk seemed to be framing the choice yesterday.

James Kirkup

MPs must not use May as an excuse to walk into Brexit disaster

Theresa May has united Westminster. Right across the political spectrum, politicians and journalists agree that her televised statement from No. 10 last night was an epic misjudgement, that seeking to pin public blame on MPs for the failure to agree a Brexit outcome has made it even less likely that they will now reach such an agreement. The PM’s awful statement, it is said, has driven away the very MPs she needs to pass her Withdrawal Agreement next week. Consensus like that deserves scrutiny, because it’s often a cloak under which people can hide inconvenient facts. Consider the assertion that May has alienated MPs who will not now vote for her deal.

Katy Balls

Theresa May’s No. 10 intervention backfires

Theresa May heads to Brussels today to plead for an Article 50 extension. The expectation is that EU leaders will only grant one on the condition her deal passes next week on a third vote. This is looking increasingly hard to do following May's No. 10 statement last night. In an address to the nation, the Prime Minister attempted to lay the blame on MPs – rather than herself – for the fact that it is now very unlikely the UK will leave the EU at the end of March. May said it was a matter of deep 'personal regret' to her and went on to add: 'All MPs have been willing to say is what they do not want. I passionately hope MPs will find a way to back the deal I have negotiated with the EU. A deal that delivers on the result of the referendum and is the very best deal negotiable.

Katy Balls

They can’t all be right

Has there been a Brexit disaster? It depends on your point of view. When John Bercow ruled that the Prime Minister could not bring the same deal back for a third vote, there were a great number of MPs who seemed delighted. But they were at opposite ends of the Brexit debate. Needless to say, they can’t all be right. Dominic Grieve, who longs for a second referendum, welcomed the decision — thinking that the panic, and the government’s inability to answer the question, would mean the decision being thrown back to the public. Bill Cash, one of the longest-standing Eurosceptics, also seemed pleased — appearing to calculate that Britain is set to leave the EU on Friday next week unless parliament votes for something different.

James Forsyth

Will it never end?

The government has lost the ability to run the country. It is no longer in charge of its own destiny, let alone that of the nation. What makes this so humiliating is that power has been ceded not to parliament, but to the European Union. The immediate future of our country will be decided in Brussels and the capitals of the EU, not in Westminster. It will be the EU that decides whether or not to offer the UK an extension to the Article 50 process, and how long it will be. Once the extension has been agreed, then parliament — which has already voted against leaving without a deal — will rubber-stamp it. Not since Denis Healey was forced to ask the International Monetary Fund for an emergency loan in 1976 has this country been so humiliated.

Rod Liddle

Bercow the brazen

You can buy the latest edition of Thomas Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice for just over three hundred quid, but I wouldn’t advise it. Short on jokes, in my opinion. A product of its time, fastidious early Victoriana striving desperately for the coming paradigm: scientism. Old Erskine was possibly the bastard offspring of one of our better lord chancellors, the libidinous Whig Thomas Erskine, who was born in Edinburgh and served under Grenville and Fox in the supposed ‘Government of All the Talents’ — as opposed to the one we have now, which is the ‘Government Of No Fucking Clue Whatsoever’. Thomas Erskine was a proponent of parliamentary reform and acted as defence counsel for Thomas Paine, which is chiefly why he is remembered — i.e.

Wednesday

Johannes de Jong

Why the EU fears a long Brexit delay

In the past I've explained why the EU would be happy if the Commons accepted May's deal. In essence, the Withdrawal Agreement would allow the EU to impose its integration project on the UK, and the UK wouldn't be able to do anything about it. In contrast, EU federalists have made it pretty clear they fear a Brexit delay. This is consistent with the tough rhetoric coming out of Brussels at the moment demanding a ‘price’ for any long delay. The PM has avoided that by proposing a short delay. There are noises coming out of Brussels that suggest next week there will be an EU Council decision on delaying Brexit. In that case, it seems likely that May will try to circumvent Erskine May, so MPs can have a Meaningful Vote 3 on her deal before that meeting.

Hardeep Singh

Has Britain become an unsafe place for Christian preachers?

In the Middle East, Pakistan, India, North Korea and parts of China – hatred and persecution of Christians is well documented. But who would have thought preaching the gospel would become a risky business on the streets of Britain? Last month saw the wheelchair bound preacher Claudio Boggi being threatened and spat at by a man called Ali Al-Hindawi, who shouted ‘Allah is God’. Al-Hindawi went on to attack another Christian volunteer in Westminster, biting his fingers and assaulting him with a metal bar - he’s thankfully now in jail. Next came the news that an innocent street preacher, Oluwole Ilesanmi, had been arrested for ‘breach of the peace’ outside Southgate tube station, after being reported for ‘Islamophobia’.

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn makes pointless Brexit meeting all about him

This evening, Jeremy Corbyn walked out of a meeting between opposition party leaders and the Prime Minister about Brexit. The reason for his angry protest had nothing to do with what was being discussed, but his distaste for one of the attendees. Former Labour MP Chuka Umunna was there to represent the Independent Group, and this, according to those present, was too much for the Labour leader to stomach. Labour has since said the the terms of the meeting had changed and that this wasn't what Corbyn had agreed to when he said he would meet the Prime Minister in her office. But this is an impressive own goal, even by the Labour leader's standards.

Theresa May

Full text: May’s statement calling on MPs to back her deal

Nearly three years have passed since the public voted to leave the European Union. It was the biggest democratic exercise in our country’s history. I came to office on a promise to deliver on that verdict. In March 2017, I triggered the Article 50 process for the UK to exit the EU – and Parliament supported it overwhelmingly. Two years on, MPs have been unable to agree on a way to implement the UK’s withdrawal. As a result, we will now not leave on time with a deal on 29 March. This delay is a matter of great personal regret for me. And of this I am absolutely sure: you the public have had enough. You are tired of the infighting. You are tired of the political games and the arcane procedural rows.

James Forsyth

May says little new in statement as she again attacks MPs for failing to make a decision

Theresa May’s statement tonight wasn’t particularly dramatic. She had no new policies to announce or arguments to make. Rather, she once again attempted to frame the choice before MPs as her deal, no deal or no Brexit. She tried to position herself as the defender of the referendum result and attacked MPs for failing to take a decision. As a political journalist my reaction to the statement was, is that it? But the question is whether the attack on MPs for the endless motions and amendments and for not talking about anything else will resonate with the public, and lead to them putting pressure on their MPs to back the deal. May said, as she had in the House earlier, that she won’t delay Brexit beyond June 30th.

Robert Peston

Do MPs really have to choose between May’s deal and no-deal Brexit?

Will MPs next week really face a simple choice, between May's deal and a no-deal Brexit, or is that a bluff? Such a binary choice was what a dozen cabinet ministers - those who hate the idea that the Brexit delay could be nine months or more - were sure they heard from the PM when they met her at lunchtime today (they included the Brexiter veterans, such as Penny Mordaunt, Liam Fox and Andrea Leadsom, as well as the recent converts, Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt and Matt Hancock). And it is what the EU president Donald Tusk seemed to be saying in his public statement today. For what it's worth, I have investigated as far as I can the truth of whether there is a third way, with my sources in EU capitals and Brussels.

James Forsyth

Donald Tusk doesn’t rule out a long extension

Donald Tusk has just declared that the UK can have a short extension if MPs vote for the Brexit deal next week. The Tusk statement implies that if MPs don’t vote for the withdrawal agreement, then the UK can’t have an extension—and so will leave without a deal. I suspect that we’ll see Number 10 trying to use this line to cajole Labour MPs into voting with the government next week. But I don’t think what Tusk was saying was quite that simple. His message was that if the UK wants a short extension then the meaningful vote needs to pass next week, as per the timetable set out in Theresa May’s letter.

James Forsyth

What Theresa May revealed to Boris Johnson

In the House of Commons today, Theresa May indicated that she would quit as Prime Minister if the UK hadn’t left the EU by the 30th of June. She was, in effect, suggesting that if MPs vote down her deal again next week, they’ll be making her departure from Downing Street more likely. But this is the opposite of the promise many Tories want her to give. A growing number of senior figures in the party believe that May should say that she’ll go if her deal passes. In other words, vote for the deal and then you can pick a new Prime Minister. They believe that this carrot might entice some Brexiteer rebels to back the deal.

Lloyd Evans

‘Weak, weak, weak’ – May battered from both sides at PMQs

The Brexit kerfuffle has been so much fun that she wants three more months of it. That was the PM’s message to parliament today. At the start of this rowdy session some members seem to think they could terminate May’s career live on TV. Pete Wishart, the first member called, laid into her mishandling of Brexit and flung three blunt syllables at her, ‘weak, weak, weak.’ This struck the wrong note. Too brutal. And rather cheap to use a phrase coined by Tony Blair to undermine John Major. There was a hint that the PM wishes to retain control of her destiny. She laid special emphasis on her official rank when she said, ‘as prime minister, I am not prepared to delay Brexit any further than 30th June.’ Is that a promise to resign? Good news for May-bashers.

Alex Massie

A changing Britain needs to ask: what kind of country do we want to be?

After Christchurch, I found myself thinking about East London. Not because I was wondering if it could happen here because, frankly, of course it could but because what’s happening in East London is going to change Britain and, because of that, is going to have to change the way we think about this country. Consider a pair of pioneering schools in East London. Last year pupils at Brampton Manor academy, most of them from ethnic minorities, received 41 offers from Oxford and Cambridge. Another Newham school, the London Academy of Excellence has a claim to be the best-performing sixth form college in England. While selective, around half its places are filled with pupils from one of London’s poorest boroughs.

Katy Balls

Theresa May hints she’ll quit if no Brexit by end of June

After a morning of rumours and heightened tension over the terms of the Article 50 extension Theresa May will seek, No. 10 have finally released the letter. The Prime Minister has asked the European Commission for a brief delay to Brexit until the end of June. In the letter, May makes clear that she has plans to ask MPs to vote on her deal for a third time – and hopes this extension will allow time for this to happen and the subsequent legislation to pass in an orderly fashion. Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, May confirmed that she would put her Brexit deal to a third vote in the Commons but stopped short of saying when. She said that if the deal failed for a third time, Parliament would then need to decide how to proceed.

Charles Moore

The problem with Speaker John Bercow

The trouble with Mr Speaker, even when he makes the right decision, is his motives. Fame is the spur and so is his love of hurting the Conservative party which nurtured him. However natural these feelings, they are completely wrong for the Speakership. The occupant of the chair is supposed to be a pillar of the constitution, not its talking gargoyle. A sad feature of the Brexit story has been how so many people with important official roles have not seemed to understand or, in some cases, even to care, what those roles entail. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England are supposed to assist the British economy, not invest in its collapse.

Theresa May

Full text: May’s letter to Donald Tusk requesting a Brexit extension

Dear Donald, The UK Government’s policy remains to leave the European Union in an orderly manner on the basis of the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration agreed in November, complemented by the Joint Instrument and supplement to the Political Declaration President Juncker and I agreed on 11 March. You will be aware that before the House of Commons rejected the deal for a second time on 12 March, I warned in a speech in Grimsby that the consequences of failing to endorse the deal were unpredictable and potentially deeply unpalatable. The House of Commons did not vote in favour of the deal. The following day it voted against leaving the EU without a negotiated deal.