Politics Archives

Wednesday

18 July 2018

I was wrong about Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson – an apology. His speech today was a very fine one and correct in each and every aspect. A week back, I took a shot at Johnson for what seemed to me the self-serving nature of his political manoeuvrings. They may still be intrinsically self-serving, I suppose. But it is nonetheless laudable that the hive of dead bees, the Conservative Party in Parliament, should hear a few home truths. Boris’s best speech of his career, by some margin. Hats off to him.

Steerpike

Jacob Rees-Mogg backs Boris

Boris Johnson's resignation speech wasn't the Geoffrey Howe moment some had built it up to be. But the former Foreign Secretary's critique of Theresa May's Brexit policy certainly gave Tory MPs food for thought. Johnson made clear he thought the policy amounted to Brexit in name only – and pushed for a change of course. Given that the Prime Minister shows no sign of backing down and is adamant hers is the right way, this presents the Brexiteers with a problem. Despite their insistence they would rather May stay in office, will this position be tenable in two months time if nothing has changed? And who could they turn to should they need someone to step up and challenge May? Perhaps a clue can be found in Jacob Rees-Mogg's endorsement of Johnson's speech.

Lloyd Evans

Jeremy Corbyn gives Theresa May another easy ride at PMQs

There is something horrible and unnatural about seeing Theresa May in trouble. Her aloof and grandmotherly face becomes a canvas on which all kinds of dreadful emotions are drawn. It’s almost too much to watch, really, it’s like seeing Miss Marple on a shoplifting charge. She arrived early at PMQs with a gravestone pallor. It was the same grimace she wore on election night when she realised she’d blown her majority. Lips tightly pursed. Small eyes held in a rigid squint. Fear and remorse etched in every powdered wrinkle. She sipped at her water and fussed with a Kleenex. Then she hunched in her seat, neither resting against the leather back nor leaning fully forward. The posture of the murderer awaiting sentence. The first question came from Brexiteer, Andrea Jenkyns.

Stephen Daisley

Labour members must pick a side in the fight against anti-Semitism

Snap. It was a long time coming but it was always coming. Jeremy Corbyn, who has traded on an image of saintly anti-racism for his entire career, was finally confronted by someone who sees through it. Yesterday, Labour's national executive committee adopted a new policy that rejected the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. Rabbis from across the spectrum had urged Labour to accept this definition; Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis warned that failing to do so would send an unprecedented 'message of contempt to the Jewish community'. Of course, that was the point.

James Forsyth

Boris’s speech makes it harder for May to sell her Chequers plan

Boris Johnson did not launch a full-on attack on Theresa May in his resignation speech. But he was brutally critical of the Chequers plan, saying that in crucial respects it was ‘Brexit in name only’. He complained that since the Lancaster House speech ‘a fog of self-doubt has descended’ and that the UK never even attempted to turn that speech into a negotiating position. He said that ‘18 months of stealthy retreat’ had led the UK to its current predicament. In a speech shorn of his usual jokes, the former Foreign Secretary urged Theresa May to change course, to return to Lancaster House. He said that there was ‘still time to save Brexit’.

Brendan O’Neill

In praise of Labour’s Brexit rebels

So this is what a principled politician looks like. They can be hard to spot these days, but last night, in parliament, we saw four of them in action. Kate Hoey, Frank Field, John Mann and Graham Stringer. Four Labour MPs who, despite knowing they would get flak from both Corbynistas and centrists, despite knowing the Stalinist sections of left-wing Twitter would shriek for their deselection, despite knowing they would be paraded online as ‘Tory stooges’ whom all good Labourites have a duty to despise, nonetheless voted with their consciences and rejected an amendment to Theresa May’s trade bill that could have kept Brexit Britain entangled in a customs union with the EU They are being credited with saving May’s bacon.

Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson’s resignation speech, full text

Thank you Mr Speaker for granting me the opportunity to pay tribute to the men and women of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who have done an outstanding job over the last two years, and I am very proud that we have rallied the world against Russia’s barbaric use of chemical weapons with an unprecedented 28 countries joining together to expel 153 spies in protest at what happened in Salisbury. We have rejuvenated the Commonwealth with a superb summit that saw Zimbabwe back on the path to membership and Angola now wanting to join. And as I leave we are leading global campaigns against illegal wildlife trade and in favour of 12 years of quality education for every girl.

Katy Balls

Theresa May’s premiership enters ‘last days of Rome’ mode

'I used to worry that something bad would happen, now I worry that something catastrophic will happen.' This is how a Cabinet minister sums up the new political crisis facing the Conservative party – and soon the country. Last night one such catastrophe was narrowly avoided. The government managed to defeat the Tory rebel amendment calling for a customs union if frictionless trade was not agreed by January. Had they lost it, Theresa May's Brexit strategy would be dead in the water and the Whips allege that a confidence vote would have been brought – and an early election loom. The reason May avoided this fate? Labour rebels came to her rescue.

Tuesday

17 July 2018

Katy Balls

Government’s not so cunning plan for an early summer break is scrapped

The government suffered a defeat in the Commons this evening. The good news for Theresa May is that it wasn't the one No 10 were so worried about. Although Philip Lee's amendment for European medicines regulatory network partnership succeeded, the Tory rebel amendment calling for the government to join a customs union if it does not agree a free-trade deal with the EU was narrowly defeated, at 307 to 301. This means the government can breathe a little easier for now. They can still claim to agitated Brexiteers that they are negotiating a deal which would allow them to strike international trade deals.

Stephen Daisley

Who governs Britain? | 17 July 2018

There are moments that cut through the din of braggadocio, vindictive utopianism and arrant stupidity surrounding Brexit. Anna Soubry has provided one in an impertinence during yesterday's debate on the cross-border trade bill. She let into Jacob Rees-Mogg and his European Research Group (ERG) for coercing ministers to abandon much of the substance of the Chequers Brexit blueprint. Then, standing mere metres from the Treasury benches, she enquired: 'Who is in charge? Who is running Britain? Is it the Prime Minister or is it the Honourable Member for North East Somerset? I know where my money's sitting at the moment.' Before the crazy set in, an MP taunting the Prime Minister as a feckless weakling would bring the full nuclear hellfire of Number 10 raining down upon their head.

Steerpike

‘I’m literally a communist’ T-shirt – literally free market economics

Last week, the left-wing blogger Ash Sarkar told Piers Morgan she was 'literally a communist' after the pair got into a heated debate over her decision to protest Donald Trump's visit to the UK when she hadn't done the same for Barack Obama. Since then, the clip has gone viral and Sarkar – who works for Novara Media – has been rebranded as a liberal champion – with Teen Vogue even chipping in. Now Novara Media is keen to cash in. The blog has released a new t-shirt to its online shop emblazoned 'I'm literally a communist'. Only rather than, say, practise communism and dispensing them 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' – the site appears to have opted to follow free market principles on this occasion.

Steerpike

Blue on Blue: Nadine Dorries attacks Anna Soubry – ‘they’ve lost the plot’

Oh dear. As No 10 attempt to stop more Commons rebellions today on the customs bill, relations between Tory Remain rebels and Tory Brexiteers have hit an all-time low – and that's saying something. Appearing on the Daily Politics, Nadine Dorries launched a broadside against Anna Soubry over her comments in the Chamber on Monday – when the Tory MP accused her Brexiteer colleagues with a 'gold-plated pension and inherited wealth' of backing Brexit to the detriment of people's jobs. One such Brexiteer colleague's response? Dorries just described it as 'one of the worst moments that we have ever seen or witnessed in the chamber'. https://twitter.

Steerpike

Dominic Raab’s special turn

Theresa May's government may be on the verge of collapse but it's still business as usual on the Westminster summer party scene. At think tank Freer's summer party at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Liz Truss introduced the new Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab – finding time to send him up after he was outed for having the same Pret lunch every day: 'Freedom to choose is very important to me. I want the freedom to be able to eat a donut or drink a glass of wine. Our speaker tonight wants the freedom to eat the same meal at Pret a Manger every day of the week — and I applaud that freedom!

Alex Massie

Michael Gove’s Brexit regret is much too little, much too late

Not the least extraordinary thing about the campaign to leave the European Union is that it turns out no-one was in charge of it. Things just happened and decisions were just made without the oversight or knowledge of the most senior politicians whose support for the project was reckoned, with some reason, to be crucial to its essential success. If Boris Johnson gave the Leave campaign a popular - and populist - presence in the nation’s television studios, Michael Gove gave it a certain intellectual credibility amongst the - admittedly small - percentage of the electorate that worries about such things. And with good reason: Gove’s intelligence, if not always his judgement, has never been in doubt.

Charles Moore

Why is Theresa May so dependent on Angela Merkel?

Why do the British turn to the Germans in their moments of European trouble? It never works. When Jacques Delors conceived his single currency plans, Mrs Thatcher over-relied on Karl Otto Pöhl at the Bundesbank to squash them. Dr Pöhl preferred to side with Helmut Kohl. When Britain was struggling to stay in the ERM in the late summer of 1992, the Major government put faith in what they thought were German promises to help them out. These failed to materialise. When David Cameron sought a new EU deal which would win him the 2016 referendum, he placed his greatest hopes in Angela Merkel, who offered him concessions so feeble that even he quickly gave up trying to sell them. Last week, Mrs May flew to Berlin.

Monday

16 July 2018

Katy Balls

The return of the Brexit fudge

When Theresa May tried to get her Cabinet to agree on a unified Brexit position at Chequers earlier this month, the hope was that this would mark a new chapter of party unity that would allow the Prime Minister to get on with delivering Brexit. Yet a week or so later, the Conservative party is more divided than ever. After May finally showed her hand on Brexit, she has seen frontbench resignations, blue-on-blue warfare, a growing Eurosceptic rebellion and calls for a second referendum. This afternoon things came to a head in the Chamber. Despite calls from May over the weekend for Tory MPs not to frustrate the Customs Bill, No 10 were forced to cave to pressure and accepted four amendments to the legislation.

Matthew Lynn

Business should now get behind ‘no deal’ with the EU

Both the Brexit and and Foreign Secretaries have resigned. The Chequers agreement, if that is the right word, looks about as enduring as the latest relationship on Love Island. The Prime Minister is staggering so uncertainly from one option to another that even Donald Trump’s advice over the weekend seemed almost sane. The UK’s strategy for leaving the European Union, insofar as we ever really had one, is in tatters. Big Business will no doubt respond to that with calls for a softer and softer Brexit simply in the hope of getting something in place before March next year. We will hear a lot about cliff edges, and the dangers of a collapse in the economy.

Steerpike

Theresa May’s big problem? Her ‘passion for what’s workable,’ says Tory MP

Andrea Jenkyns is regarded by many Tory MPs as a Brexit champion – after the Conservative MP for Morley pre-emptively quit last month as a PPS to fight for Brexit. Since then Jenkyns has become one of the loudest voices calling for a new tack from No 10 in the negotiations. However, Mr S can't help but wonder whether Jenkyn's latest intervention didn't land quite as she had intended. In an interview with the Telegraph, the Tory MP attempts to criticise the Prime Minister for not being a true Brexiteer – not because she's a Remainer but because her passion is... 'what's workable' 'It is time for her to go. I don't think she has passion for either Remain or Brexit, I think she has a passion for what's workable.

Steerpike

Justine Greening’s change of heart

Over the weekend, Theresa May attempted to stem the growing Eurosceptic rebellion by warning Brexiteer MPs that if they didn't back her Chequers proposal, they risked not Brexit at all. Tory activists and MPs were quick to slam what they saw as a threat. But is there one group of Tory MPs who at least buy May's 'my Brexit or no Brexit' argument? Mr S only asks after Justine Greening today called for a second referendum. The Remain-leaning MP write in the Times that May's plan is the worst of both worlds and says a three-way referendum at the end of the Brexit process is required – offering voters a choice between the PM’s deal, a no-deal Brexit or staying in the EU.

Pavel Stroilov

Will Donald Trump dare to challenge Putin over his political prisoners?

From Nixon’s ‘détente’ to Obama’s ‘reset’, every new US administration makes one attempt at reconciliation with Moscow. Today it’s Donald Trump’s turn, at his summit meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. At first, such meetings are sensationalised as historic turning points, with the future of the world hanging in the balance. But that view doesn’t usually last long. It only takes a couple of state-sponsored assassinations by Russia, and maybe a small war in addition, for the parties to realise that they are at cross-purposes. And if you are in geopolitics, as a US president has to be, you have to talk to foreign dictators from time to time. That is not a treason in itself, but there are proper ways of going about it.