Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 17 January 2019

Turkey and the deep state Boris Johnson said that if Brexit was blocked, the public would blame it on the ‘deep state’. The expression comes from the Turkish Derin Devlet — coined to express the conspiracy of military, police, intelligence bodies and even organised criminals which many Turks believed were operating against their democratically elected government. It made its way into the English language in the 1990s when Kurdish separatists were threatening to declare independence. While there is little doubt that police and the military were involved in the underhand suppression of Kurdish insurgents, their efforts did not support the existence of a well-organised secret government.

Paul Mason

Diary – 17 January 2019

A few of us on the Labour left decide to see if it is possible to conjure, from nowhere, a #FinalSay campaign for a second referendum. The Labour front bench does not sound ecstatic about a second referendum, and Chuka Umunna’s lot are bound to screw it up if they’re in charge. So we schedule a meeting in the Commons, commission a meme and spread the word. Not long after this goes public, numerous Twitter users with random numbers in their handles begin accusing me of being a ‘pro-Nato White Helmet shill’, a ‘coup-monger’ and a ‘neoliberal’. The reaction at my Labour branch is more positive. We pass a motion calling for an emergency party conference to decide the line in any second referendum. Our MP, pro-Brexiteer Kate Hoey, does not attend.

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 17 January 2019

The scale of the government’s defeat on Mrs May’s deal is, as everyone keeps saying, amazing — yet also not. Mrs May had been told again and again by Tory MPs who were not natural rebels that they could not accept her plan, partly because of the money, but chiefly because of the backstop trap. She just did not seem to take it in. When 117 of her party voted no confidence in her a month ago, she still did not pick up the message, but instead turned to trade union leaders, Labour MPs and potential Remainer rebels to make conciliatory noises on the other side of the argument. So 118 Tories quite logically voted against her solution in parliament on Tuesday night.

The Spectator

Rude health

An unexpected outcome of the tortuous process of Brexit negotiations has been the enhancement of Britain’s reputation as a parliamentary democracy. For many years, it has seemed as if political debate was draining away to the TV and radio studios, or even to social media — with MPs reduced to simply rubber-stamping decisions which have already been made elsewhere. This week, the Commons reasserted its authority in the most dramatic way imaginable, inflicting the largest ever government defeat on a substantive motion. The rejection of the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal is a humiliation on a scale which confounded the government’s attempts at expectation-management. To Mrs May’s credit, she immediately conceded that MPs must decide what happens next.

Graham Gudgin

The vote on May’s deal was less important than you might think

Now that the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement has been decisively rejected by Parliament, the challenge, as Theresa May said last night, is to find an alternative way forward. But the reality is that the fall of the agreement is less important for the UK than widely assumed. It did not pin down any long-term trade arrangements. Even in the short term, the main gain to the UK was a transition period which now looks less essential than was the case when it was first mooted over a year ago. It is true that there is now a possibility of tariffs from March 30th but these tariffs are mostly small and the EU has stronger reasons for avoiding them than the UK. The EU exports £54.

Nikki Da Costa

Boles’s crazy plan

At first, it seems fanciful. A backbench MP, Nick Boles, proposes to take power away from the government and place it in the hands of MPs, to prevent a no-deal Brexit. Can one backbencher usurp power in this way? It’s ambitious. But under the British system, government reports to parliament, not the other way around. Usually the distinction is moot, because government can control the Commons. But when that control collapses, every kind of mischief becomes possible. Until a couple of months ago I was director of legislative affairs under Theresa May in No. 10, where it was my job to look at parliamentary procedures. It’s quite a minefield.

Martin Vander Weyer

Is the UK auto industry only struggling because of Brexit?

The popular new narrative for the UK auto industry is that its troubles are only temporarily to do with Brexit and much more to do with misguided policies, wrong decisions and economic swings. There’s a sharp decline in demand for luxury models from pinched Chinese consumers, while diesel sales have slumped because regulators continue to penalise them despite cleaner engines, leaving manufacturers regretting model-range investments. The EU’s new emissions testing regime has caused production problems across the continent; electric vehicle sales won’t take off until governments provide more charging points; and as interest rates begin to rise, motorists are losing the appetite for buying new cars on credit.

James Kirkup

Brexiteers are destroying their own dream

Are some Brexiteers addicted to disappointment and frustration? Do they so crave the righteous indignation that flows from being thwarted that they are actively trying to sabotage their own project? How else to explain the extraordinary strategic incompetence of Tory MPs who say they want Britain to leave the EU yet behave in a way that makes it increasingly likely that Britain will not do so? Brexit-backing readers may well dismiss my thoughts on Brexiteer strategy because I am, of course, a dreadful Remainer. More accurately, I voted to remain and I believe that leaving the EU will give the UK a range of possible futures that are less economically beneficial than those we’d have if we remained a member.

James Forsyth

How long can Corbyn hold out against a second referendum?

Jeremy Corbyn is no enthusiast for a second referendum. He wants to, as his speech today suggested, hold further motions of no confidence in the government to try and force an election rather than have to decide on what other option he is going to support. But having tried and failed in one confidence motion, this is a more difficult position for him to maintain. Vince Cable has now said that Corbyn can’t rely on Lib Dem support in future confidence motions and has suggested that other opposition parties will soon take the same view. The aim of this tactic, to make clear that Labour can’t force a general election and so Corbyn needs to decide on a second referendum. Now, Labour are already attacking the Lib Dems for being prepared to prop up the Tories.

Steerpike

Watch: Labour supporters heckle the media

You would think that after being Labour leader for three years, some of the shine would have worn off Jeremy Corbyn. But among the devoted, 'JC' is still an object of veneration who can do wrong, which means of course that any criticism of him is considered blasphemy. The Corbyn cult were in strong form today, when the Labour leader gave a speech in Hastings to set out his Brexit policy. While the crowd were initially quiet, at the first sign of a journalist asking Corbyn a difficult question (about why he would not talk with the Prime Minister about Brexit) they immediately sprang into action, booing the journalist and shouting 'rubbish' at him. They eventually had to be calmed down by the chairwoman. Kinder, gentler politics once again from Labour members.

Robert Peston

Which party will split first: Labour or the Conservatives?

Which of the Conservative and Labour parties is most likely to split over Brexit? Or perhaps it is more apposite to say which party will break up first, since the gravitational force of competing visions of the UK's future relationship with the EU are threatening to fracture each of them. On my show last night the divisions in the Tory Party were on full display – with the chief secretary Liz Truss implying that the prime minister is wasting her time wooing party leaders to find a Brexit compromise, and should concentrate instead on reaching out to the 118 Tory MPs and the DUP’s 10 who voted against her. What Truss appears to believe is that if the EU can be persuaded to either remove the backstop or put a time limit on it, the PM’s deal would pass through the Commons.

Steerpike

Watch: Barry Gardiner loses his temper on Sky News

Yesterday evening after winning her no confidence vote, Theresa May stood up in the House of Commons and offered to hold talks with opposition parties about the Brexit negotiations. Jeremy Corbyn (despite spending the day asking why May hadn't included Labour in the talks) declined the invitation, saying he would only meet May once she had ruled out a no-deal Brexit. Already that decision, which has left Labour open to accusations of pettiness, seems to be backfiring. Shadow International Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner was sent out on the broadcast round this morning to defend the Labour leader's decision.

Michael Gove

Transcript: Michael Gove’s barnstorming speech in no-confidence debate

In the no-confidence motion today, Michael Gove gave one of the best speeches of his parliamentary career, praising Labour moderates and launching an excoriating attack on Jeremy Corbyn. Here’s an edited transcript. [This] has been a passionate debate characterised by many excellent speeches. Perhaps the bravest and the finest speech that came from the opposition benches was given by the member for Barrow-in-Furness. It takes courage – and he has it. Having been elected on a Labour mandate representing working class people to say that the leader of the party that you joined as a boy is not fit to be prime minister: he speaks for the country. And that takes us to the speech from the Shadow Secretary of State [Tom Watson]. He spoke well.

Alex Massie

Sturgeon and Salmond’s fight to the death

Amid the wreckage of a Brexit process that has disrupted every aspect of British political life, it is easy to forget that it is not the only drama currently playing. Nor is Theresa May the only political leader who has no need to go searching for trouble. Michael Gove openly warns that ‘winter is coming’ for Westminster, but in the north it has already arrived. In Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon faces the biggest crisis of her career. It is one that may yet destroy her. Civil war is always uglier than your standard political conflict. We have the First Minister complaining that she is the victim of a ‘smear’ campaign and a ‘vendetta’ launched against her by, astonishingly, her predecessor, Alex Salmond.

John Connolly

Booths

If you mention the word ‘Booths’ anywhere south of Knutsford, you will usually be met with a blank expression, followed by someone wondering if you are mispronouncing the name of a nearby pharmacy. But in the north-west the name is associated with a store native to Lancashire, which, uncharacteristically for a supermarket chain, holds a fond place in many people’s hearts. For those not aware of the Booths chain, it is often called the north’s answer to Waitrose. I think the comparison is a tad unflattering to Booths; while Waitrose has rapidly commercialised, Booths has retained its local roots and independent character. It has far fewer stores than other chains and is still very much a family business: the current chairman is Edwin J.

Martin Vander Weyer

Darkness looms as distracted ministers fail to address the widening energy gap

Transfixed as you were by Westminster chaos, did you also spot the news that Hitachi is about to cancel or suspend construction of the Wylfa nuclear power station in North Wales? The Japanese engineering giant has evidently failed to reach agreement on a guaranteed electricity price and terms for a UK government stake in the project; its decision follows that of its compatriot Toshiba, which in November pulled out of building a nuclear station at Moorside in Cumbria, largely because it disliked the Treasury’s favoured financing model that loads risk on to the contractor. These two projects between them were intended to keep the lights on in 11 million UK homes, factories and offices.

Matthew Parris

Leavers don’t actually want to leave

When intelligent, informed and rational people make a choice that onlookers can see confounds their own declared interests, we are wise to look to psychiatry for an explanation. This is where my thoughts turn, now that Tory Brexiteers have conspired to block Theresa May’s road from Chequers to the deal the Commons so spectacularly rejected this week. Until the last minute, I hesitated to accept the Tories’ European Research Group would join this rebellion. Cautiously I inserted ‘probably’, ‘by all accounts’ and ‘apparently’ into every column I drafted. That hardline Brexiteers would in the end want to kill the Prime Minister’s deal didn’t make sense. We Remainers have been unable to believe our luck.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Why did Theresa May bother giving a statement in Downing Street tonight?

Theresa May has just given a statement in Downing Street in which she apparently said absolutely nothing. The Prime Minister walked out to the lectern outside No.10 and offered the sort of update on her diary that is normally sent out by email from the Downing Street press office. She said that she had held talks this evening 'with the leader of the Liberal Democrats, and the Westminster leaders of the SNP and Plaid Cymru', adding that 'I am disappointed that the leader of the Labour Party has not so far chosen to take part'. After a day of complaining that the Prime Minister hadn't yet picked up the phone to him, Jeremy Corbyn has refused to meet May until she rules out a no-deal Brexit.

Katy Balls

Corbyn’s refusal to meet with May could backfire

Theresa May is riding on a temporary high after winning the confidence vote against her government by a majority of 19 – by this government's standards that's a comfortable win. However, as is ever the case May's problems are far from over as she now has to come up with an alternative Brexit plan to present to the Commons on Monday. On winning tonight's vote, May said that to do this she would invite opposition leaders for talks this evening. This is seen as a risky move in certain Conservative circles as if it looks as though May is working closely with Jeremy Corbyn it would test party loyalty. However, it may not even come to that as so far all the signs suggest Corbyn could refuse to meet with her.

Steerpike

Watch: ‘Shame on you’: Labour MPs shout down Michael Gove

Michael Gove ended the no confidence debate in the Commons by denouncing Jeremy Corbyn. But perhaps unsurprisingly his criticism of the Labour leader did not go down well with those on the opposite benches. His comments about Corbyn were shouted down by Labour MPs, who yelled 'shame on you'. Here's what Gove said to rile them up: 'If the leader of the opposition won't stand up against Putin when he attacks people in this country...if he will not stand up for this country when the critical national security questions are being asked, how can we possibly expect him to stand up for us in European negotiations?' Mr S thinks Gove might have a point...