Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Jeremy Corbyn is as deluded about Brexit as Jacob Rees-Mogg | 21 November 2018

Now that the coup of the plastic spoons appears to have failed – Jacob Rees-Mogg and his accomplices could not even synchronise their pocket-watches – Theresa May finds herself back where she has been all along: strengthened by her weakness. This is a remarkable situation for any prime minister but not, for May, an unprecedented one.  It helps that her enemies are so utterly incompetent. The sallow men of the European Research Group are not only not a government in waiting but not a collection of kingmakers either. Just as Voltaire quipped that the Holy Roman Empire was in fact none of these things, so we may say something similar about the ERG.  But, in fairness to the Moggists, they are not the only group suffering from delusions of influence.

James Kirkup

This MP has summed up everything wrong with the transgender debate

MPs have been talking about gender and sex and the law. This is a good thing. That’s the job Parliament is there to do, after all: debate complicated, contested issues in order to decide how and if to make laws, and to make sure the country is a place where differing views and arguments can be tested. So well done to David T.C. Davies, who brought about today’s debate in Westminster Hall, and well done too to MPs such as Layla Moran, Hannah Bardell and Lilian Greenwood who took part in the debate. Some of the things that were said in the debate were sensible and thoughtful, some were not. But in a sense, that doesn’t matter; the same is true of all parliamentary debates, which are inevitably a mixture of insight and cobblers.

Isabel Hardman

Why aren’t there more women MPs?

It's 100 years today since women were able to stand for Parliament, and the Women and Equalities Committee marked it with a hearing on the barriers to getting more female MPs. It has only been in the past few years that the total number of women ever elected into Parliament has passed the number of men currently sitting on the green benches, and 32 per cent of MPs are women. This puts the UK at 48 in the world rankings for gender representation in its Parliament, which isn't great. I was one of those giving evidence to the Committee this morning, using research I've conducted for my book, Why We Get The Wrong Politicians.

James Forsyth

Theresa May fails to calm her Brexit critics at PMQs

Jeremy Corbyn is not a forensic Commons performer. He is uncomfortable adjusting his questions to take into account Theresa May’s responses. This limits his ability to pin May down. Today, he asked a question on a customs and regulatory border in the Irish Sea. May emphasised that there wouldn’t be a customs border there. But Corbyn didn’t then pursue what kind of regulatory border there would be. The result was that May sustained no damage during their exchanges.  Once again, the lack of support in the chamber for May’s deal was striking. There were a couple of supportive questions from the Tory benches, but more hostile ones. The most difficult question of the session came from George Freeman, May’s former policy chief.

Steerpike

Michael Gove finds his Game of Thrones ‘soulmate’

One of the least popular MPs in the Conservative Party at the moment has to be Michael Gove. As the attempt to oust the PM gained pace late last week, Gove disappeared for the day, annoying those who wished him to remain loyal to May, and then refused to resign, annoying those who wished to see her go. In short, angering everybody, and pleasing no one. Such unpopularity would undoubtably cause a bout of introspection in the environment secretary, which may explain why he took a quiz today to determine which character from the popular TV show Game of Thrones was his 'soulmate'. Less clear is why he shared the result on social media: https://twitter.

Katy Balls

Did Amber Rudd’s Today interview actually help No. 10?

In her first interview since returning to the cabinet, Amber Rudd has set the cat among the pigeons. Speaking on the Today programme this morning, the new Work and Pensions Secretary appeared to go off script as she talked about the prospect of a 'no deal' Brexit. The former Remain campaigner said that Parliament 'will stop No Deal' if the deal is voted down as there 'isn’t a majority in the House of Commons to allow that to take place'. 'I don't think we are looking at another referendum. I think what will happen is that people will take a careful look over the abyss and despite what people say the EU withdrawal agreement will get through.' On the surface at least, it doesn't appear to be a particularly helpful intervention.

Nick Cohen

How the ‘people’s vote’ campaign gained momentum

A year ago, campaigners for a ‘people’s vote’ seemed an eccentric bunch of no hopers and bad losers. Mocked as ‘remoaners’, their arguments barely covered by the media, history had left them behind. As the leave campaigns’ central claim that we could have the benefits of EU membership while leaving the EU is revealed for the absurdity it always was, the ‘people’s vote’ has gathered mass support and moved from the fringes to the mainstream with heartening speed. One mark of the campaign’s success is that even its critics acknowledge that a ‘peoples vote’ is a viable solution to the constitutional, economic and diplomatic crisis that engulfs us.

Katy Balls

Tories try out life as a minority government

MPs and ministers who had settled down in Parliament on Tuesday evening for a late night of votes on the finance bill were given an early reprieve – all votes were off. However, rather than an early Christmas present from No.10, the shelving of votes on the finance bill was down to a reason out of Theresa May's control: no working majority. With the DUP abstaining for a second day over grievances with the EU withdrawal text, the government decided to concede all amendments to the bill – including one from the SNP. It's not clear they would have lost on every single amendment but after the antics of Monday (when the DUP voted with Labour but not enough Labour MPs turned up to secure victory), all opposition MPs were on standby to try and inflict a defeat on the government.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Brexiteer plot flops: Anatomy of a failed coup

Brexiteers are trying to put on a brave face over the lack of 48 letters needed to trigger a confidence vote in the Prime Minister. Having begun the week certain that they would trigger a vote, they now claim they are giving May time to reconsider and they may move in December. So, what's the truth - a kind gesture or a failed plot? In order to let readers decide for themselves what went wrong, Mr S has gathered a timeline of events: Thursday, 15th November Theresa May's deal is approved by Cabinet – minus a resignation or two. Henry Smith MP posts a photo of his no confidence letter on top of the withdrawal agreement (Mr Steerpike assumes this is a Brexiteer’s equivalent of a seductive selfie): https://twitter.

Matthew Lynn

Has Mark Carney just ended the campaign for a ‘People’s Vote’? | 20 November 2018

The headlines will inevitably write themselves. The Bank of England backs Theresa May. The Prime Minister's beleaguered and precarious deal is the best of all the options available and the economy may well get through the next few months largely unscathed. Following the testimony this morning from the Bank’s governor Mark Carney, most people will pick up on the support he has given to the Prime Minister and his reassurance that the economy will survive our departure. And yet there were two more significant points that emerged from his testimony. The Bank is finally willing to concede that leaving without a deal wouldn’t be so bad after all. And just at the moment when not leaving at all has become a real possibility, the Bank has given up on it.

Steerpike

Nadine Dorries defends the Tories’ botched coup

It's been a rough start to the week for Brexiteers in the ERG, as they failed to reach 48 no confidence letters over the weekend, and are now being forced to explain why their coup (sorry, 'democratic process within the Conservative party') against Theresa May has been such a disaster. It was Nadine Dorries' turn this afternoon to spin the unspinable, as she bravely attempted on Politics Live to portray the disastrous attempt as somehow positive. When presented with the Telegraph headline: 'Plotters fail to light the fuse', Dorries' reply that 'No, it's a burning fuse' was a little unconvincing.

Steerpike

Watch: Jacob Rees-Mogg rebukes reporter over Brexit ‘coup’

The Brexit bunch's bid to oust Theresa May has fallen rather flat, at least for the time being. Having failed to muster enough letters to force a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, the European Research Group now appears to be desperately backtracking. Jacob Rees-Mogg, who enjoyed the limelight at an impromptu press conference outside Parliament last week when a vote appeared to be imminent, seemed somewhat more shy this morning when he was asked about the attempt to bring down the PM – rebuking a reporter for calling it a 'coup': 'Coup is entirely the wrong word. Indeed it is a rather silly word. This overegged language is rather damaging to political debate.

Steerpike

Labour snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

Oh dear. Theresa May's confidence and supply agreement with the DUP is on very thin ice – if not already dead – after the party's MPs abstained on a range of amendments to the finance bill and even voted en masse for a Labour amendment. This is in breach of the party's deal with the Conservatives – the row has been triggered by May's Brexit deal. However, it's not just May who has been caused a headache by last night's Commons antics. The DUP voted for a Labour amendment to the finance bill calling on the Treasury to produce impact assessments of the budget on inequality and child poverty. Yet somehow it didn't pass – the government still won by five votes. The reason? A number of Labour MPs were absent for the vote including one Jeremy Corbyn.

Monday

Johannes de Jong

Why Theresa May’s Brexit deal is bad news for Europeans

Theresa May's current Brexit deal will tie the UK more closely to Brussels than if it had stayed in the EU. The agreement, which is supposed to take back control and restore British sovereignty, will actually have the opposite effect. This is bad news for Britain – and bad news, too, for Europeans like myself who are desperate to see the EU reformed for the better. Jo Johnson was right to claim, when he resigned as a minister, that the choice now facing the UK is between ‘vassalage’ and ‘chaos’. On both sides of the debate, among Brexit supporters and those who want Britain to remain in the EU, the fact that Britain will have to adopt EU legislation on a wide range of issues for an undefined period has sunk in.

Katy Balls

DUP abstain on finance bill – what it means

Although Theresa May looks set to avoid a confidence vote for the time being, tonight's Finance Bill votes could serve to undermine her authority further. Government whips have spent the day frantically trying to persuade swing MPs to vote with the government against a series of amendments. Those efforts have been rather fruitless in some respects – with the government already forced to concede on the Jo Johnson backed amendment calling for the Treasury to publish a comparison of the impact of the Brexit deal with the impact of Britain’s existing terms with the EU. Adding to May's woes is the fact the DUP have abstained on most of the votes.

Steerpike

ERG plotters fail to meet the bar

Speaking on the Today programme this morning, Simon Clarke – the Tory Brexiteer who has filed a letter of 'no confidence' in the Prime Minister – declared that 'this is the day we stand at the bar of history'. Clarke and his fellow Brexiteer plotters said that the full 48 letters required to trigger a confidence vote were imminent: 'this day must be the point at which ... action is taken'. Alas it seems today is not the day after all - the ERG plotters have failed to meet the bar. As Isabel reports on Coffee House, Tory Brexiteers are now briefing out that they are giving May time to consider – rather than firing off the final few letters. A kind reprieve from the ERG – or are they just saving face after several weeks of dodgy arithmetic?

Isabel Hardman

No-confidence threat against May recedes – for a few days

Is Theresa May about to face a vote of no confidence in her leadership? The Prime Minister is acting as though nothing has changed, to coin a phrase, focusing on selling her Brexit plan to business leaders at the CBI, rather than getting too bogged down with the internal problems with her party. But those trying to organise the move against her had been making noises all day that they may have the requisite number of letters calling for such a vote by this evening. This doesn’t look like it’s going to be the case. Indeed, today a number of Brexiteers including Owen Paterson and Iain Duncan Smith have been holding talks in Number 10 along with David Trimble about a proposed solution to the Brexit deal that might prevent a leadership contest.

Steerpike

May’s Brexit deal: 40 rebuttals to Downing Street’s 40 rebuttals

Is a deal better than no deal? After Mr S attempted to answer that question over the weekend by publishing 40 horrors lurking in the small print of Theresa May’s Brexit deal, No. 10 got in touch with 40 rebuttals to Steerpike's 40 horrors. Still with us? Well, episode three of this series is finally here. Mr S thanks 10 Downing Street for conceding many of the 40 points on the Withdrawal Agreement, and for engaging in all of them. In the spirit of friendly discussion, here are all 40 of Steerpike's responses. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First, a note on ambiguity: In its rebuttals, No10 accepts ambiguity over how the document might be interpreted - which, in this case, is crucial.

Ross Clark

Why do we care what the CBI thinks about May’s Brexit deal?

Big UK business is often guilty of short-termism and the CBI's response to Theresa May’s draft withdrawal proposal is no exception. Large companies are backing May’s appalling deal with the EU because they are preoccupied with ensuring that next year’s results are no worse than the guidance they have given markets. The opportunities which could arise from a proper Brexit, in which Britain is allowed to do its own trade deals, set its own regulations and lower taxes and other barriers in order to suck in overseas investment, are too far over their horizon for them to see. How often have you heard the words drip from well-fed FTSE 100 executives: 'what business needs most is stability'?

Sunday

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows roundup: Theresa May’s Brexit warning

Theresa May - Brexit will be harder without me The Prime Minister joined Sophy Ridge this morning to discuss the result of the government's draft withdrawal agreement with the European Union, which was released on Wednesday. The controversial 585 page document has already seen several resignations, with other ministers thought to be considering their positions. There has also been considerable discontent on the Conservative backbenches, with the influential European Research Group now calling for a vote of no confidence in May's leadership. In response, May told Ridge that her critics needed to get their priorities straight: https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1064094963275841536?