Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Tuesday

Tom Goodenough

Caroline Spelman’s Brexit amendment passes

Caroline Spelman’s Brexit amendment – saying that Britain should not leave the EU without a deal – has passed in the Commons tonight. The amendment – which won by 318 votes to 310 – displays Parliamentary opposition to a no deal exit, but it is purely advisory and has no legislative force. This means the amendment is not binding on the government. Despite this, the defeat demonstrates the possibility that, as the end of March approaches, parliamentary opposition to no deal could prove enough to prevent Britain crashing out of the EU.

Steerpike

Watch: Nick Boles caught napping in the Chamber

After another long day discussing Brexit in the House of Commons, it was the job of the Brexit secretary, Stephen Barclay, to finally close the debate with a rousing speech ahead of the votes on several amendments to the Prime Minister's motion. Barclay has not exactly, to put it mildly, made a huge impact since he took over the job from Dominic Raab in November last year, and most members of the public would struggle to pick him out of a police line-up. But even he might be disappointed by the reception his speech in the Commons received from his Conservative colleagues. Along with various looks of pained agony and boredom, Mr Steerpike spied that Nick Boles (the Tory MP pushing for Norway Plus) even managed to rest his eyes while the secretary of state was speaking: https://www.

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn’s petty Brexit speech undermined the Labour leader’s claim to be serious

Jeremy Corbyn scolded a Tory MP during his opening speech in the Commons debate on Theresa May's Brexit Plan B, telling the backbencher that his intervention hadn't added anything to the seriousness of the occasion. How odd, then, that the way the Labour leader conducted himself throughout his speech also ended up fitting that criticism perfectly. The Labour leader's response was dominated not by a careful critique of the Prime Minister's strategy for getting a new Brexit deal agreed with European leaders and then accepted by the Commons, but by his petty refusal to take an intervention from a backbencher on his own side. Angela Smith, who has long been openly hostile to Corbyn, repeatedly stood up to ask him to give way. Corbyn repeatedly ignored her.

Katy Balls

Theresa May entertains the idea of backing the Malthouse Compromise

Is the Conservative party finally uniting around a Brexit plan? This afternoon, the Prime Minister had a surprisingly good turn at the despatch box. Opening the debate for tonight's amendment votes, May explained why she was supporting the Brady amendment calling for an alternative to the backstop – and why she rejected all other amendments. She said it was clear what MPs did not want – including her existing deal in that, but said what mattered was MPs now sending an 'emphatic message about what we do want'. Within a minute of talking, Labour MPs were interrupting to try and embarrass her over her change of tune on the merits of her deal – given that May previously said it couldn't be improved. However, what will have boosted morale in No.

Steerpike

Remainer wars: Anna Soubry heckles Nicky Morgan

When details emerged late last night that a small group of Conservative MPs had been secretly planning a Brexit compromise (named after Kit Malthouse who helped broker the deal) it was surprising for many to see both Remainers and Leavers within the Tory party working together on it. On one side of the aisle you had those leaning towards Remain, such as former education secretary Nicky Morgan, and on the other Brexiteers like Jacob Rees-Mogg, all collaborating on a compromise they think could get through parliament. A nice example of cross-factional unity within the Tory party for once, you might think. But clearly the decision to exclude certain members of the Remain side from the talks may have ruffled some feathers.

Tom Goodenough

Ex-Labour MP Fiona Onasanya jailed for speeding ticket lie

Shamed former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya has been jailed for lying to police over a speeding ticket. Onasanya compared herself to Jesus after being found guilty of perverting the course of justice last year. But her explanation that she was 'in good biblical company, along with Joseph, Moses, Daniel and his three Hebrew friends, who were each found guilty by the courts of their day' didn't convince a judge at the Old Bailey who this afternoon sentenced Onasanya to three months in prison. When she was first elected as MP for Peterborough in 2017, Onasanya had said: 'I would like one day in the future to become the first black, female Prime Minister of this country' Instead, Onasanya becomes the first female MP ever to be sent to prison.

James Forsyth

What Labour’s support for Cooper’s Brexit amendment means

Labour is now backing the Cooper amendment. It will whip its MPs to vote for this amendment which would require the Government to request an extension to Article 50 if no agreement can be reached with the EU. The aim of the amendment is to prevent a ‘no deal’ Brexit on March 29th. However, in a sign of the divisions within Labour over the issue, the party will then seek to amend Cooper to reduce the length of the extension from nine months to three. (Ironically, nearly everyone in Whitehall expects Article 50 to be extended for a few months even if a deal gets through in the next couple of weeks because of the amount of time it’ll take to put the withdrawal agreement into domestic law). With Labour’s backing, Cooper is highly likely to pass.

Robert Peston

The ultimatum that will be given to Theresa May at cabinet today

There will be two more momentous issues discussed at this morning's cabinet - neither on the PM's own agenda, but which will be forced on her by recalcitrant colleagues. Yes another two historic decisions. Yawn. One group of ministers - Rudd, Gauke, Clark and conceivably Hammond and Lidington too, inter alia - will warn the PM that they will resign after cabinet unless she commits that there will be ANOTHER amendable meaningful vote on 13 February, that would allow them at that juncture to vote to take a no-deal Brexit off the table. Presumably when presented with this ultimatum the PM will concede. But who can be sure any more?

Katy Balls

Can the Malthouse Compromise break the Brexit deadlock?

After the European Research Group announced on Monday night that they would not get behind the Brady amendment to replace the backstop with alternative arrangements, it looked as though the grand plan to salvage Theresa May's deal was on the rocks. Now there is a new proposal doing the rounds which has the backing of both senior ERG members – including Steve Baker – and the support of Remain-leaning Tories including Nicky Morgan. Dubbed the Malthouse Compromise (in honour of housing minister Kit Malthouse who helped broker the proposal) it lays out an alternative to the backstop. The proposal is comprised of two parts. Plan A is to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement and renegotiate the backstop.

Monday

Stephen Arnell

Brexit would have been Flashman’s finest hour

With the 50th anniversary of the publication of George MacDonald Fraser's first Flashman novel, how would Thomas Hughes’ school bully have handled British politics today — and who’s most like our favourite literary cad? Given recent allegations of sexism and bullying in the Commons, Flash would have found himself at home. If Westminster is a boarding school, Flash would be among the prefects, pushing around the sneaks, sots and brown-nosers, and paying court to those further up the greasy pole. ‘Kiss up, Kick down,’ as they say. Flash is always at his best in a total fiasco, so Brexit would have been his finest hour.

Matthew Lesh

Sadiq Khan is wrong about rent control

Rent control would worsen London’s housing crisis while hurting the poor, immigrants, and minorities. Yet Sadiq Khan wants to make it the central plank of his bid to win re-election as London Mayor. Khan has said the case for rent control is 'overwhelming' and that 'Londoners overwhelmingly want it to happen'. But while some may see rent control as a way of capping the money going into the pockets of landlords, it would actually make London's problems worse. Rent control would lead to less home building—what London actually needs. On top of that it will mean lower quality housing and discrimination against the most vulnerable. From San Francisco to Stockholm, Berlin and New York, rent control has proven disastrous in every place it has been tried.

Robert Peston

Theresa May has thrown the dice up in the air tonight

I have given up trying to understand Theresa May. I used to think she was the most methodical and risk-averse of politicians. But she has tonight thrown the dice up in the air - or perhaps, to use George Osborne's analogy, pointed the loaded revolver at herself. Because she is whipping for the Brady amendment that calls on her to rip up the backstop and replace it with unspecified alternative arrangements to keep open the border on the island of Ireland. And she is doing that to prove to the EU that if it dumps the backstop, her Brexit plan might at the last be ratified by MPs - and yet she knows quite what a long shot that is, and how desperate some would say she seems.

James Forsyth

May urges Tory MPs to give her something to battle for

Theresa May has met Tory MPs tonight in a last-ditch effort to try and persuade them to vote for the Brady amendment tomorrow. She said that she would go back to Brussels and push for ‘fundamental changes’ to the backstop. But to do that, she needed to be able to show the EU that parliament was behind her—and so, MPs had to vote for the Brady amendment. May said that the government would whip in favour of Brady, essentially making it government policy. (Some in the room, though, say that May suggested in one answer that this would be subject to Cabinet agreement). Getting the Brady amendment through will be an uphill task. As Katy reported earlier, the ERG is currently not planning to vote for it.

Stephen Daisley

The traditionalist worldview has gone from orthodoxy to punchline to nostalgia to ‘hate’ in a startlingly short space of time

I recently rewatched The Birdcage, Mike Nichols’ pleasing farce of clashing values, a Hollywood adaption of Jean Poiret’s lighter, sharper 1973 play La Cage aux Folles. The son of drag club owner Armand Goldman (a dialled-up Robin Williams) has proposed to the daughter of Republican Senator Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman, almost camper than Williams) and tries to arrange a dinner for the two families without Keeley discovering that Armand is gay. In the end, everyone learns to get along and some riotous slapstick disrupts the mildly preachy tone. It’s not Nichols’ best work but in 1996 it was a step up from the Four Fucks and a Funeral movies that monopolised queer cinema.

Katy Balls

May’s deal on rocks as ERG reject backstop plan

When Sir Graham Brady tabled his Brexit amendment asserting that Theresa May's deal would be palatable if the backstop is replaced with an alternative arrangement, the hope was that enough Conservative MPs would align behind it to show Brussels that – so long as they were prepared to compromise – a deal could pass the Commons. That plan has hit a fairly large stumbling block this evening. Members of the European Research Group – made up of backbench Tory Eurosceptics – gathered in Portcullis House to come up with a formal position ahead of tomorrow night's vote. The consensus was that they would not back the Brady amendment – nor any other, including the Murrison amendment which attempts to put a time limit on the backstop.

Tom Slater

It’s no wonder young people are falling out of love with Corbyn

One of the ironies of contemporary British politics is that many younger voters – some of whom are so opposed to eurosceptic baby boomers that they accuse them of ‘stealing their future’ – are also enamoured with Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader is, after all, a eurosceptic baby boomer who some still speculate might have secretly voted Leave at the referendum. But a poll out today suggests that the Corbyn coalition is finally beginning to creak under the weight of this contradiction. According to an Opinium survey, commissioned by For our Future’s Sake (FFS), the student wing of the People’s Vote campaign, just 23 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds approve of Corbyn’s handling of Brexit; 37 per cent are opposed.

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s Immigration Bill stance shows how much Jeremy Corbyn has changed

A row is brewing in the Commons over Labour's stance on the Immigration Bill, which has its second reading this evening. The party's whips told MPs this morning that they would be on a one-line whip for this piece of legislation, with the plan being to abstain on the vote itself. Centrist MPs in particular are angry about this, suggesting the Labour leadership is trying to 'pander to Ukip' by not opposing the Bill outright. Abstaining at Second Reading is normally something a party does to signal that it supports some aspects of a bill, while having concerns about others. It neither wants to oppose or support the legislation outright at this stage. In this instance, the Immigration Bill ends free movement, and brings EU citizens living in the UK under domestic immigration law.

Robert Peston

Theresa May could soon face her biggest humiliation yet

The Brexiters in and around the Tory European Research Group are now telling me they are minded to vote against the Murrison/Brady amendment – which would mandate the PM to replace the backstop with some other unspecified arrangement to avert a hard border on the island of Ireland. Why? Well one of them told me it is because they fear it is a 'bait and switch' – namely a deft con to sucker them into ultimately voting for a Brexit plan they can’t stomach. So that seems the end of that. And proves quite how little mutual trust there is between the PM and much of her own party.

Steerpike

Watch: Jeremy Corbyn’s miserable Monday morning

Did Jeremy Corbyn get out of the wrong side of bed this morning? Mr S. only asks because the Labour leader was somewhat short of words when he was asked whether his party would or wouldn't be backing Yvette Cooper's key Brexit amendment in the Commons tomorrow. Here's how he greeted a BBC journalist who asked him that as he left his house  arlier today: https://twitter.com/BBCNormanS/status/1089837990757703680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Oh dear...

Katy Balls

Why this week could end in more Brexit deadlock

On paper, this week ought to be a decisive one for the government's Brexit position. After Theresa May's Brexit deal was voted down by 230 votes, MPs now have the chance to vote on their own amendments to that deal. The majority are non-binding – but they do carry political weight - while a handful would lead to legislation and therefore force the government's hand. The two amendments currently being talked up as the most likely to pass are the Yvette Cooper amendment to stop no deal and the Graham Brady amendment to ditch the backstop. The Brady amendment seeks to make clear that MPs will back May's deal if the backstop is replaced with alternative arrangements.